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THE MAN WHO 
CANNOT DIE 












THE MAN WHO 
CANNOT DIE 

By THAMES WILLIAMSON 

Author of 

“Run Sheep Run,” “Gypsy Down the Lane,” etc. 

THE AMERICAN PANORAMA' 



BOSTON 


SMALL, MAYNARD fe? COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 












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Copyright, 1926 

Br SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

(Incorporated) 




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Printed in the United States of America 


THE MURRAY PRINTING COMPANY 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 


THE BOSTON BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

MOV -3 1926 


©Cl A0 500 57'/ 



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For Mary 










NOTE 


The characters in this gentle fantasy are imagi¬ 
nary, and are not intended to reflect upon actual 
individuals. The names of most of my person¬ 
ages have been selected for onomatopoeic reasons, 
and it is only a coincidence that some of these 
names, such as Morton, Pentland, and Galloway, 
occur in Pennsylvania history. 

Several of the characters introduced in this 
story appear in other of the novels which comprise 
The American Panorama: 

Edward Galloway appears in Texas Terror. 

Bob Heath appears in Poison Plant. 

Arthur Pentland appears in Snuff The Candle. 

The “blond man” appears in Snuff The Candle , 
Once A Bluebird , and So Ends The Day. 


Thames Williamson. 


“Him must I show the dark and tenebrous road — 
Necessity, not pleasure, is the goad ” 


— Dante. 








































































































































































































































































































































































' 







































































































































CONTENTS 


Child Youth And Man He 
Fears It .... 3 

A Charm Against The Flesh¬ 
less One .... 71 

Confusion Pierced By Sud- * 
den Comfort . . . 135 

Time Displaces His Wife As 
Bedfellow .... 199 

Oh For A Charm Against 
The Fleshless One! . . 253 

Wanderer .... 289 

The Blind Alley And The 

Eye. 339 

An Ending Is Sometimes A 
Beginning .... 387 



* 


Child Youth And Man 
He Fears It 










I 


In the days when the American people 
were so recent an offshoot from the European 
stem as hardly to have taken root in the soil 
of the New World, there lived, in the city of 
Philadelphia in the province of Pennsylvania, 
a gentleman by the name of Mr. Henry 
Morton. 

Nature had endowed him with conspicuous 
talents, and these he had employed with such 
skill that at the age of thirty he was a dis¬ 
tinguished member of the Philadelphia Bar, 
and at forty was recognized as the most suc¬ 
cessful barrister in the city. At fifty he had 
amassed a fortune and was living in a large 
and handsome house in Chestnut Street, a 
comfortable aristocrat, surrounded by luxury 
and elegance,—and all the while the breach 
between the mother country and her wayward 
colonies was widening and widening. 

Born and bred in England, Mr. Morton 
loved her with an unquestioning tenacity, and 
being irascible by temperament he could not 

3 


4 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


help being offended at what he called the 
ridiculous demands of his patriotic neighbors, 
especially when these neighbors were of the 
propertyless class. He scorned to argue with 
them, but the times were inflammable, and 
when news of the Declaration of Independ¬ 
ence reached his ears he was goaded into cer¬ 
tain indiscreet remarks about the equality of 
man, after which his star began to waver and 
to dim away. Millers refused to grind corn 
for the haughty old Tory, boys thumbed 
their noses at him in the street, while anony¬ 
mous pamphleteers threatened him with a tar 
and feathering party with himself as guest of 
honor. His legal practice fell off steadily, sank 
and crumbled until he foun # d himself upon 
the brink of poverty, a wrinkled sour old man, 
brooding over the good old days when the 
mob was kept in place. 

During these troubled years his wife was 
his chief comfort, then she unexpectedly died, 
leaving on his hands a daughter he had never 
understood. 

The girl now proceeded to puzzle him even 
more: once melancholy, a hysterical cheerful¬ 
ness suddenly broke out upon her; her custom- 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 


5 


ary pallor gave way to a continual flushing; 
formerly a great stay-at-home, she grew to hate 
and even fear the house. She insisted on 
visiting relatives until her period of mourn¬ 
ing was up, and when she came home again 
it was to throw herself into a never-ending 
round of gayety. In the summer she pic¬ 
nicked upon the banks of the Schuylkill, in 
the autumn she danced, and in winter went 
sleigh-riding, in short she amused herself 
according to the time of year, until she fell 
in love with Ralph Pentland, whereupon the 
seasons ran together into continuous spring¬ 
time. 

Pentland was well-born, and in addition 
was very clever at writing verses. His art he 
now called up, concocting such agreeable mix¬ 
tures of the stars in heavens, the zephyrs of 
the woodland, and the innumerable charms 
of Miss Jane Morton, as to make her really 
as happy as she had been pretending to be 
since her mother’s death. This outpost taken, 
the lover advanced upon the father, leaving 
his poetizing at the door, and entering as one 
intent upon the necessity—the absolute neces¬ 
sity, sir—of preserving peace between Eng- 




6 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


land and the colonies. He talked so well that 
the old barrister smiled upon him, listened 
attentively to his suit, and said yes. 

The marriage followed quickly, and every¬ 
one was very happy, but after a while the 
poet-husband gave signs of leaning toward the 
cause of the patriots. One night there was an 
argument. Mr. Morton began with a lofty 
remark concerning rebels and rogues, to which 
his son-in-law replied with one or two insinu¬ 
ations as to the ocular defects of conservatism. 
The barrister grew warm, the opposing coun¬ 
sel waxed hot. Mr. Morton waved his daugh¬ 
ter into silence and proceeded to deliver an 
opinion upon knaves, demagogues, ignora¬ 
muses, and Americans in general; he had 
scarcely concluded before young Pentland 
waved his wife into silence and launched into 
an extralegal account of traitors, enemies 
from within, and tools and creatures of Brit¬ 
ain, to say nothing of dastardly betrayers of 
a righteous cause. 

This interesting situation continued for 
several weeks, at the end of which time Mr. 
Morton seized upon the daughter he had so 
recently given away, and ordered the scamp 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 


7 


of a husband to be gone. Pentland went off 
to war without further talk, while the grief- 
stricken bride obediently returned to her 
father’s house in Chestnut Street. There she 
languished, dull-eyed and sick at heart, sink¬ 
ing lower and lower with every passing day. 
The weeks dragged by.the months 


dragged by.no word of the absent 

soldier.one day the old barrister 


stalked into his daughter’s room with twitch¬ 
ing face. 

“Why, father!” she exclaimed, “what is 
the matter?” 

“Madam! that blackguard has been killed 
in an assault upon His Majesty’s forces at 
Yorktown.” 

The new-made widow rose to her feet, gave 
a shriek, and fell in a swoon. A short while 
afterward she was prematurely delivered of 
a son,—Arthur Pentland. 

II 

The defeat of Cornwallis virtually ended the 
war, but it did not put a stop to the indignities 
to which Mr. Henry Morton had so long been 
subjected,—as a matter of fact, his position 







8 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


became steadily more difficult. He was for¬ 
bidden to practice in the courts. A crowd of 
hoodlums threw a stone through his front 
window, and when he rushed out upon them 
they knocked him down, tore off his wig, and 
paraded it up and down the street on the end 
of a pole. The law seized upon his property 
as just forfeit to the sovereign state of Penn¬ 
sylvania, and presently an unsigned letter in¬ 
formed him that if he lingered in Philadelphia 
very much longer, his upper parts would be 
benumbed by an instrument even more effec¬ 
tive than the paralysis which had already 
crippled his lower limbs. 

He accordingly decided to leave the City of 
Brotherly Love, and to go west to Pittsburgh, 
where he hoped to make another fortune by 
speculating in land. 


Ill 

The Pittsburgh of that time was made up 
of a few log houses and store buildings clus¬ 
tering about the junction of the Allegheny 
and Monongahela rivers, two wide and limpid 
streams flowing between wooded hills, green 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 


9 


hills. It was a pleasant scene, virgin, pic¬ 
turesque, with peace so clear upon it that the 
three travellers could not help being pleased: 
the baby crowed, the mother beamed, while 
the old barrister allowed a crooked smile to 
escape him. 

The village itself turned out to be less 
inviting. Trappers and blanketed Indians, 
hunters, traders, scouts, adventurers, every 
kind of desperate and unwashed character 
strode up and down the muddy street. Not 
every one in the place was sober, and Mrs. 
Pentland did not at all like the way certain 
wild-looking persons were galloping up and 
down the river bank, now and then shouting 
out words which happily for her she did not 
understand. The only dwelling available was 
a log hut, so redolent with souvenirs of a 
former tenant that it was with great difficulty 
that the newcomers persuaded themselves to 
accept it even as a temporary shelter. 

The land speculations of old Morton 
went very well, but though in time he ex¬ 
changed the log house for a fine residence of 
brick, his opinion of Pittsburgh did not im¬ 
prove. Hardly a day went by that he did not 




10 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


lecture his daughter upon the vulgarities of 
the town and upon the grievances of an Eng¬ 
lish gentleman in so barbarous a place. He 
continued to refer to the Americans as rebels 
and to arraign them at an imaginary bar of 
justice, himself arguing the case against them 
and then turning magistrate in order to con¬ 
demn them to purgatory for their insolence, 
after which judicial exercise he would fall 
back in his chair pale and exhausted, with 
perspiration standing out upon his brow. 

As for the widow Pentland, she was also a 
mother, and it seemed to her that this rude 
frontier community was the very worst pos¬ 
sible spot in which to bring up a child. The 
street in front of their house was a favorite 
gathering place for a number of hogs who 
came here to root about and grunt over mat¬ 
ters of mutual interest, and when the old bar¬ 
rister one day declared these porkers no more 
offensive ‘ (either to eye or nose) than the 
two-legged swine who were turning the entire 
village into a sty, his daughter pursed her 
thin lips in approval. Clasping her child to 
her breast, she gave him a pitying look, and 
murmured, 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 11 


“Poor little Arthur, I’m afraid he’ll find 

it an unfriendly world.even though 

I do what I can to guard him against it.” 

Mr. Morton reached out and touched the 
flabby little thing, whereupon the boy opened 
his pale gray eyes and seized his grandfather’s 
finger. 

“Prematurely born,” muttered the old 
paralytic, pulling away. “An abortion, pre¬ 
cisely as this so-called nation of united states 
was a premature birth. Such things cannot 
endure. They’ll both perish.” 

This frank prediction terrified Mrs. Pent- 
land, but though on account of the abruptness 
with which her son had begun life his first 
years were difficult ones, he lived. True, he 
did not thrive. True, also, that in spite of the 
care with which she watched over him, he 
remained a frail sickly child, unquiet rather 
than active. He was sluggish and even dull, 
and always preferred his mother’s lap to 
romping. A curious compound of obstinacy 
and docility, he was the most sensitive boy 
imaginable, detesting noise and unable to bear 
pain in any form. He suffered from night- 
terrors, as a result of which Mrs. Pentland let 





12 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


him sleep with her until he was a good-sized 
lad. 

Now this arrangement was as agreeable to 
the mother as to the son, for it was only 
Arthur’s little arms about her neck which gave 
her courage to face the lugubrious terrors 
which slumber so commonly unleashed upon 
her. For weeks and months at a time she 
scarcely closed her eyes in sleep when the 
gory figure of her husband rose before her, 
the blood of battle still upon his pale and 
ghastly face. From such nightmares she 
always awoke with a scream of horror, and 
the boy also waking, the two would clasp each 
other in an ecstasy of fright. 

Upon one such occasion she gasped out the 
details of her hideous dream, a very unwise 
thing to have done she afterward decided, for 
her little son slept no more that night. The 
next day he could not bear her out of his sight, 
and as evening came on, his anxiety returned. 
When she announced that it was his bedtime 
he shuddered violently and began to cry, and 
it was only by promising to retire with him 

that she was able to calm the child. 

Together they knelt at the bedside. He was 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 13 


staring at the shadows cast upon the wall by 
the flickering candle. 

“Come dear, say your little prayer.” 

He folded his hands and closed his eyes, 

“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the 
Lord my soul to keep. If I should die.” 

“Go on, Arthur, and please don’t tremble.” 

“But Mother, am I going to die?” 

She paled a little, 

“Don’t be afraid, Arthur. While you 
sleep God comes and watches over you.” 

Comforted by this, he finished his prayer 
and clambered into bed. She got in beside 
him. 

“Mother, does God protect me against 
everything?” 

“Why.yes.” 

“And is He big and strong, Mother? Could 
he lift a horse?” 

“Yes, of course, but do close your eyes and 
go to sleep like a good child.” 

Mrs. Pentland dozed off.Suddenly 

she awoke. The room had been flooded by the 
moon, and by means of this illumination she 
saw that Arthur was sitting up in bed. She 
hastily raised a hand, but—ah! somnambu- 







14 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


lism—she kept silent, hoping that he would 
lie down again. In this she was disappointed, 
for even as she gazed, the child slowly got 
out of bed, his head thrown back and his eyes 
in a fixed stare. 

“God,” he whispered, “are you here? 
Where are you, God? Are you watching over 
little Arthur?” 

Getting no answer to this trembling ques¬ 
tion, the boy walked to the window, as if 
intending to climb out. When he had stared 
through the glass, however, he appeared to 
change his mind: turning round he went out 
the door and up the stairs, the anxious mother 
close behind. Arrived at the second floor, 
the child passed along the hall until he came 
to the room occupied by his grandfather. He 

went in.began to walk slowly about, 

Mrs. Pentland meanwhile standing in the 
doorway with clasped hands and prayerful 
face. Around and around the room the sleep¬ 
walker pursued his way, around and around 
in a comfortless circle—all at once the grand¬ 
father started up in bed, 

“What are you doing here?” 

The boy turned to him with a beseeching 
whisper, 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 15 


“Where can Arthur Pentland find God? 
Are you God? Tell me, are you God? Do 
you watch over me?” 

The old man burst into a roar of laughter, 
but halted abruptly, for his explosive mirth 
had wrenched the sleepwalker from hope to 
despair. The child reeled back as from a 
blow, fell to the floor, and came to his senses 
with a piercing scream. Mrs. Pentland rushed 
to him and seized him in her arms, showering 
him with kisses and caresses and fond 
words. 


IV 

The mother carried the sobbing boy back 
to their room, but although he stopped crying 
when they were in bed again, his little hands 
kept clutching at her desperately. He pressed 
his lips against her breast as if suckling, and 
when she suggested that he would be more 
comfortable lying with his back to her, he 
screamed out that he would not face the dark, 
oh never! She embraced him tenderly, say¬ 
ing in a playful whisper, 

“But you’re crowding me out of bed.” 

He began to whimper, 




16 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Please don’t scold me. I’ve got to be 
close to you. I want to get inside of you, into 

your heart.then I’ll be safe and 

happy.” 

Mrs. Pentland made no reply to this, but 
long after he had fallen into a restless sleep 
she stayed awake, pondering in her mind the 
meaning of the vagaries of her little son. The 
sleepwalking adventure, in particular, wor¬ 
ried her a great deal, and fearing that he might 
become a habitual somnambulist, she decided 
to break up his further inclinations in this 
direction. 

The next evening she tucked him in bed, 
and proceeded to fasten the doors and win¬ 
dows, thus turning the room into a kind of 
prison from which it would be difficult for 
the boy to escape in unawakened quest. He 
watched her with wide eyes, 

“Mother, why are you locking us in?” 

“To keep you from wandering off from me 
in your dreams. Don’t you remember what 
you did last night?” 

He answered slowly and solemnly, 

“No. I just remember I hurt my head 
.but you kissed it and made it all 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 17 


well again. Must I go walking in 

my dreams?” 

“Certainly not,” said Mrs. Pentland 
sharply. “You must stay in bed with me, or 
you will hurt yourself again.” 

“Yes,” and when she had come to bed he 
hugged her tight, “I won’t do it any more.” 

In spite of this assurance, however, he had 
not been asleep a half hour before he fell to 
twitching and moaning. Mrs. Pentland 
thought another somnambulistic seizure was 
coming upon him. She got up, found a cord, 
and stealthily bound his foot to the bedpost, 
after which she lay down again, tense with 

anxiety. The child had quieted.He 

seemed to be sleeping peacefully, when all at 
once he started to get out of bed. The cord 
brought him up with a jerk, whereupon he 
awoke. 

“Arthur!” cried the mother, “you prom¬ 
ised you’d not do it again, and you did.” 

The boy threw himself into her arms, pro¬ 
testing tearfully, 

“Oh Mother, I didn’t mean to, truly I 
didn’t. I don’t want to dream, and I don’t 
want to leave you. Hold me tight, Mother, 






18 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


then I won’t be able to go. You won’t let 
me go, will you, Mother?” 

“No.No.I shan’t let you 

go*” 

V 

The somnambulistic impulse bothered the 
child for several months, and then gave way 
to a lethargy which oppressed him day and 
night. When of an evening he crawled into 
bed it was to sleep like a drugged thing, while 
during his waking hours he would sit in an 
apathy, hands limply folded in his lap, his 
lips drooping open, and his gaze fixed vacantly 
upon the floor. He appeared to be sunk in 
perpetual re very, so indifferent to what was 
going on about him that Mrs. Pentland had 
to repeat her queries in order to get a reply 
from him. The boy’s preoccupation had 
begun to worry her, and when one day he gave 
an inarticulate answer to her question and 
immediately fell back into his stupor, she said 
firmly, 

“Arthur, your coloring is bad this after¬ 
noon. I think you ought to go outside and 
play awhile.” 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 19 


“I don’t want to play with the other boys.” 

66 Why not?” 

“Because they always pick on me.” 

“Then play by yourself. Come, if for no 
other reason than to please me.” 

The boy got up and went outside, moving 
dully, listlessly: he had small relish for these 
late autumnal days when the gloom of the 
morning hours is scarcely cut away by the 
sun before the light is veiled by the shadows 
of approaching evening. He began to amuse 

himself in subdued fashion.Presently 

he fell to gazing about in uneasiness, appear¬ 
ing to sense a presence not his own. Very 
gently he put down his playthings and went in 
to his mother. 

“I am afraid,” he whispered, and clutched 
at her dress. 

“Afraid! What are you afraid of?” 

They stared at each other in rigid silence, 
until at length the hoy lowered his eyes, mur¬ 
muring weakly, 

“I don’t know.” 

He had no more to say, but it was evident 
that his mind was still groping in the labyrinth 
of some nameless dread; Mrs. Pentland made 





20 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


up her mind to distract his attention. Select¬ 
ing Pilgrim’s Progress as a volume combining 
entertainment and moral instruction, she sat 
down beside him and began to read aloud. 
Some moments went by, when the story fell 
upon a somber path, and along it journeyed 
a number of pilgrims, including Christiana 
and her son Joseph, and having come to about 
the middle of the Valley of the Shadow of 
Death Christiana said that she saw something 
approaching. Joseph questioned her as to 
what she saw, and she answered that it was 
an ugly Thing,—and a little farther on she 
told him that it had drawn nigh. 

Having read thus far, Mrs. Pentland put 
down the volume combining entertainment 
and moral instruction, and sat in silence, gaz¬ 
ing thoughtfully at the floor. The feeble 
November sun had drawn out of the room 
altogether; the shadows of the twilight were 
stealing in through the windows. Arthur was 
stiff as wood at his mother’s side, staring at 
her with white face, and whispering, now, in 
a voice which appeared to come from a great 
distance, 

“Mother, what was the ugly Thing?” 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 21 


Mrs. Pentland roused up with a violent 
start, but avoided his eyes. She did not 
answer. The boy saw that she was trembling. 
He repeated his question, whereupon she mut¬ 
tered something which he could not under¬ 
stand, and hastily rose to her feet. Going to 
the harpsichord at the farther end of the room, 
she sat down and began to play, executing a 
selection from Scarlatti, and after that a song 
from Handel, entitled 

Ask if yon damask rose be fair . 

When she had finished this brisk music, she 
forced a smile to her lips and turned to her 
son: she could barely see him, for it was now 
dusk and his figure was rapidly being obscured 
by gloomy shade. Mrs. Pentland sprang up 
and went to the mantelpiece, and then she 
gave a little cry, for the candle which she had 
tried to light had guttered to its end. 

VI 

And in that house another candle was gut¬ 
tering to its end: Mr. Henry Morton, bar¬ 
rister. 

During the first few years of what he called 




22 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


his sojourn in Pittsburgh, the old gentleman 
had maintained an attitude of alert expec¬ 
tancy, steadfast in the belief that presently the 
nightmare of democracy would fade away 
before the returning realities of former times. 
And because the awaited dawn must not find 
him unready, he had himself awakened early 
each morning, after which he was dressed with 
meticulous care in the fashion of bygone days, 
a heavily powdered wig upon his head, knee 
breeches and silk stockings for his nether 
extremities, and for his upper parts a great 
purple coat lined with white satin, with cam¬ 
bric wrist-ruffles falling over his bloated hands. 
Thus arrayed he would sit by the window all 
day, gripping his gold-headed cane as if on 
the point of springing to his feet, and gazing 
out into the garden, where there was a sun¬ 
dial, symbol to him of the inevitable march 
toward a happier time. 

But as the years went by without yielding 
any indication of rout among the despised 
democrats, he lost heart. His eyes had kept 
their fierce brightness, but they were filling 
with water, and it came to pass that when they 
blinked out upon the sundial, the shadows 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 23 


marching round it appeared to him—oh sym¬ 
bol, very true, but of a sort to make his old 
lips tremble. The awaited dawn would not 
find him unready, by God, no! but mean¬ 
while the window curtains must be kept drawn 
day and night, in order, as he explained, to 
shut out the odious, despicable, and con¬ 
temptible world. A species of senile dementia 
had long been threatening him, and now it 
showed itself openly in the rambling and 
meaningless tone which his talk frequently 
assumed, and in the querulous manner in 
which he punctuated his recital of democracy’s 
errors by whacking his black servant across 
the buttocks with his cane. 

“What the devil are you staring at?” cried 
Mr. Morton, as one day he looked up to see 
his grandson in the doorway. 

“I couldn’t see you at first, sir.” 

“Nevertheless I am here,” growled the old 
paralytic in a mournful voice, “here among 
the shadows. Confound you,” abruptly, 
“come in and shut that door.” 

The boy did. 

Old Morton sat in his armchair, a hulk of 
flabby meat, motionless save for the restless 




24 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


eyes burning against the gloom. Restless 
eyes, burning eyes, hunted eyes, fastening 
upon Arthur Pentland with a strange tenacity. 
At last the grandfather leaned forward to 
whisper in a mocking voice, 

“Well, young fellow, have you found God 
yet?” 

The boy made no reply, whereupon the 
sometime barrister began to chatter in his 
shaky crazy way, 

“Rouse up, sir! It is I who should play 
the long face, not you. Morton’s dry as bone, 
and you are full of sap. You’re young, you 
rascal, and strong, too. Getting robust, upon 
my oath! Um, damned queer. Still alive, 
aren’t you? Ha ha ha ha ha! And once I 
predicted that you’d not outlast your swad¬ 
dling clothes. Yet.By God, is this 

American nation likewise to endure ? Are you 
an emblem of this damned country, beginning 
weakly, growing strong, destined to live, while 
such as I must die? No no! by Heaven, no! 
You lie, you dog! America shall perish! May 
the Devil take it for his own, the damned 
abortion. Ugh-h-h-h. No roots, sir, and 
everything so new and strange, so new. 






CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 25 


and strange. God help me,” he groaned, and 
let his head fall upon his breast. 

Presently he looked up again, fixing the boy 
with a glittering eye, 

“The land is young and you are young. All 
things have youth, except poor old Morton. 
Youth! that’s the thing,—but the sundial 
never stops. While you watch it, the shadows 
go on marching; when you ignore it, they go 
on just the same, just the same, pushing you 
toward the abysm. But I’ll not give up! By 
God, I’ll not! Death is strong, but Life is 
mighty, too. Ha ha ha ha ha! Well, damn 
you!” he shouted all at once, “don’t stand 
there gaping! Help your poor old grand¬ 
father! Pray for me! Pray to God Almighty 
to protect me against the Fleshless One! 
Pray!” 

With chattering teeth the boy fell to his 
knees and began to petition God in behalf 
of the old man, until he heard footsteps,— 
then he stopped. The grandfather was loudly 
urging him to go on, when the door opened 
and Mrs. Pentland came in, 

“Why Father, what is the—” 

“Hush!” cried the paralyzed man, wild 




26 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


mirth in his voice. “Behold age being inter¬ 
ceded for by youth! I, the barrister, once 
pleading the cause of others, am now the pris¬ 
oner at the bar! Ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha 
ha ha! Forward, young one!” 

Arthur got to his feet and started for his 
mother, but the old man reached out and 
seized him. 

“Aha!” he leered, and drew the shrinking 
boy up close. “Why do you try to escape me? 
I have you fast. Wonderful! The mere pulse 
of your wrist warms my old blood. Blood! 
They think to ease me by opening a vein and 
taking blood from me, but that is nonsense. 
I have a better way! I’ll grip you tight like 
this, and strength will flow from you to me, 
then I shall live on and on and on. Ha ha ha 
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” 

Mrs. Pentland begged her father to be quiet, 
but he would not. Without appearing to 
notice the terror of the boy squirming in his 
grip, he fell to talking in smothered excite¬ 
ment, hastening from one subject to another 
with the air of one who seeks to keep an un¬ 
welcome caller in the antechamber under 
pretext of being occupied with present visitors. 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 27 


Thinking to relieve the apprehension which 
was every moment more plain upon his jerk¬ 
ing face, the daughter lighted a pair of can¬ 
dles,—in vain. With his eyes roving from 
one feeble flame to the other, he gabbled on 
and on, mixing American politics and English 
hedgerows, muttering of daffodils and legal 
papers, of rooks and country lanes and a 
favorite hound, of childhood days and a cousin 
long since dead, and this last seeming to estab¬ 
lish a link with reality, he raised his voice in 
a despairing cry, 

“My God! Is this the end of Henry 
Morton?” 

He buried his face in his hands, and the 
boy, released from his grip, made haste to get 
behind his mother. 

She, 

“Run for the doctor, Arthur!” 

At this old Morton raised his head with 
a gurgle of horror, his tongue wobbling in 
and out of his mouth as he struggled for 
words. 

“The Fleshless One!” he at last managed 
to gasp out. “He’s out there, waiting to come 
in! I forbid you to open that door!” 




28 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Go, Arthur!” cried Mrs. Pentland, and 
threw the door wide open. 

The boy dashed out of the room and down 
the stairs, but when he tried to open the street 
door there was no strength or sensation in 
his hand, the hand which the old paralytic had 
gripped so tightly. At that moment a loud 
cry came to him, the cry of a man in mortal 
agony, followed by the sobbing of a woman, 
mourning. Arthur Pentland sank to the floor, 
murmuring dully, 

“It’s taken him.The Fleshless One 

has taken him.” 


VII 

It was not long after the death of old 
Morton that Mrs. Pentland noticed the ten¬ 
dency of her son to avoid the upper part of 
the house. She asked him about it. 

“Because it smells bad,” he muttered. 

“Smells bad! You are certainly imagin¬ 
ing that. The second floor is as fresh and 
airy as these rooms.” 

“I feel it in my nose.” 

“Nonsense.” 





CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 29 


“It is a horrible odor, and it comes from 
grandfather’s room.” 

“Arthur!” 

But he went on obstinately, 

“It is big like a cloud, and brown, and 
heavy. It crushes me. Sometimes it is a 
knife and cuts my skin and lets out my blood. 
That’s why my wrist is paralyzed.” 

The mother had turned pale as milk during 
this halting speech, but when he had finished, 
she said sternly, 

“Your wrist is perfectly all right, and you 
know it. Furthermore, there is no such odor 

as you describe.but if you like 

.please close the door.” 

He obeyed in silence.came back 

to her side. She was sewing. After a while 
he gazed up at her slyly. 

“Mother,” he whispered, “it is coming 
through the closed door.” 

With a nervous little laugh Mrs. Pentland 
darted a look at the door, 

“Now Arthur, stop imagining such ridicu¬ 
lous things.” 

“I’m not imagining it,” he insisted. “It 
is really so. I can feel it wriggling down into 







30 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


my stomach. It stops there and makes me 
all weak and sick.” 

“That’s your indigestion. You’ve had it 
ever since you were a baby.” 

“It’s not my indigestion,” was the sullen 
retort. “It comes from the other side of the 
door, and it is like.like.” 

“Like what?” 

“Like an ugly Thing.” 

The mother sprang up so abruptly as to 
spill her sewing upon the floor, 

“Arthur Pentland! Your foolishness is 
upsetting me as well as yourself. Come, we’ll 
go for a walk. We both need the air, I’m 
afraid.” 

VIII 

Not far from their house was a hill known 
as Flare’s Knob, and there went Mrs. Pent- 
land and her son. Half way up the ascent they 
paused for a mouthful of the cool water that 
came bubbling out from a spring, and then 
they slowly went on to the top, and sat down 
to rest and to look out over the surrounding 
country. 

It was a pleasant landscape, diversified by 






CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 31 


mountain and valley, slope and level stretch, 
a green immensity through which the turnpike 
came winding from afar. To-day the highway 
was alive, alive with feet and wheels and the 
cries of men and beasts, all ranged in west¬ 
going procession, stubbornly pushing to the 
west, steadily westward. In creaking carts 
they came, in vans, in huge Conestoga wagons, 
too, rude vehicles behind which marched long 
strings of pack horses, and behind the pack 
horses droves of lowing cattle, and behind the 
cattle shrill urchins and yapping dogs, the 
rear guard of the motley immigrant train. On 
and on they came, a steady stream under a 
banner of curling dust, nearer and nearer the 
village, past an Indian encampment on a 
grassy knoll, and on to Pittsburgh itself, im¬ 
migrants heading west. 

Mrs. Pentland had been thoughtful for 
some moments, for in gazing upon the scene 
spread out before her, it had occurred to her 
that a moral lesson might be drawn from the 
spectacle of the three rivers adjacent to the 
village. Accordingly she asked her son to 
notice that the waters of the Allegheny were 
crystal clear, while those of the Monongahela 




32 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


were muddy, and that as the two streams 
merged to form the Ohio, the struggle between 
them was a kind of warfare between Good 
and Evil, from which observation she pro¬ 
ceeded to point out to Arthur the error of 
yielding to fancy and delusive imagination, 
lest these vices befoul the current of his nobler 
self. 

Homilies of this sort were very much to the 
liking of Mrs. Pentland, but the boy found 
them less agreeable, especially when he him¬ 
self was their object. He grew restless under 
her talk of fancy and vices and currents, but 
she chattered on and on and on and on, until 
at length not even she could help seeing his 
resentment,—and then she left olf with exhor¬ 
tation and turned to anecdotes of her youthful 
days in Philadelphia, thinking to soothe him. 

The child had always shown the greatest 
interest in tales of the olden time, and now 
he quieted to rapt attention while she de¬ 
scribed the fashionable strolls along Chestnut 
Street, the incessant tea drinkings, and the gay 
balls with army officers and statesmen and 
distinguished French visitors in attendance. 
With eye sparkling in reminiscence she spoke 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 33 


of how as a young girl she had ridden to 
hounds with her father, and then her voice was 
bathed in tenderness, for it told of a never-to- 
be-forgotten day when as a visitor at the horse 
races, she sat between Colonel Washington 
and Lord Stirling, and hearing a strange voice, 
looked up to see, for the first time, the 
memorable figure of Ralph Pentland. But 
that name had opened the floodgates of sor¬ 
rowful reflection, and with a little sigh she 
fell silent, until 

“What is it, Arthur?” 

The answer came in low and halting tones: 
one day he had been playing on this hill with 
another boy—they found a heap of fleshless 
bones—his playmate said they belonged to 
some soldiers—massacred here—long ago. 

“And are they my father’s bones?” he 
asked. 

A shudder ran over Mrs. Pentland, 

“Certainly not! What could have put such 
an idea into your head?” 

“He said so.” 

“Nonsense.” 

“He said it was my father without any flesh 
on his bones. He said I would be that way 




34 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


some day. He said the Fleshless One will 
come and get me, too, and take me and make 
me like himself.” 

“Be silent!” 

She turned toward him with an angry 
gesture,—and gasped in alarm, for her son 
lay upon the ground as if borne down by an 
overpowering weight. The muscles of his 
face had contracted, his breathing had quick¬ 
ened, while his pale gray eyes were fixed upon 
the mother in a wide unseeing stare. He 
tried to speak, but was unable to expel a 
single word through his dry and feverish 
lips. In a frenzy of anxiety Mrs. Pentland 
bent over him, and as she did so, there broke 
upon her ears the plunging tumultuous beat¬ 
ing of his heart. 

“Arthur!” she screamed, and half lifted, 
half dragged him to his feet. 

With a shaking hand she wiped the cold 
sweat from his forehead, and made haste to 
bring out the little bottle of hartshorn which 
was her constant companion. She begged him 
to sniff at it—do, Arthur dear, please—but 
he only pushed it away and gave a little moan, 
and whispered, very very softly, that he 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 35 


wanted to go home. On their way back to the 
house she hovered over him with a thousand 
questions as to how he felt and why, to which 
the boy replied in listless monosyllables or not 

at all.That evening she insisted that 

he go to bed early, and when she had carefully 
tucked him in, and arranged the pillows under 
his tossing head, she asked him to say his 
prayer and go to sleep like the good child that 
he was. 

“It is no use to pray.” 

“What!” and the mother recoiled in 
amazement. 

“It’s no use, I tell you! I prayed to Him 
to keep grandfather from the Fleshless One, 
and He didn’t. I asked Him to make it stop 
thundering and lightning, because I was 
afraid, and He didn’t.” 

“Hush!” broke in Mrs. Pentland, her thin 
face losing every trace of color. 

“But He never answers my prayers! He 
picks on me all the time! He lets me get 
hurt! He lets things scare me!” 

“Not another word! You are getting to 
be a very perverse child. I shan’t tolerate 





36 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


it. Say your prayer at once.or I 

shall never kiss you again.” 

He said his prayer. 


IX 

He said his prayer, but the next day found 
him lounging about the house with face 
wrinkled in deep thought; now and then he 
roused up to level a long hard glance at his 
mother. There was something cold and sus¬ 
picious in his gaze, but when she tried to find 
out what he was thinking about, he petulantly 
snatched up his cap and left the house. 
Through the garden and to the gate,—a 
moment’s hesitation and he set off down town, 
walking briskly until he came to a storehouse 
where a carter was loading hogsheads into a 
wagon. The boy halted, 

“Could you lift a horse?” 

The carter stared, burst into a guffaw, 
“Well now, lad, that’s a good un. Lift a 
hoss, eh? I’ve heerd tell o’ chaps what could, 
but it alius turned out to be all talk and no 
cider. Did ye ever see it done?” 

“No, but I’ve been told that—” 

“Oho! An’ ye’ve been told there’s a Santy 





CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 37 


Claus, too, I’ll be vowed. I’m the strongest 
cuss in these here parts, and I can’t lift no 
hoss, and neither can anybody else. Don’t 
ye believe such lies, youngster.” 

With this advice he returned to his hogs¬ 
heads, leaving Arthur Pentland to turn on his 
heel and stride off home. He kept silent all 
afternoon, but as his mother rose from the 
supper table, he asked abruptly, 

“Is a carter very strong?” 

“Oh yes, there is no one stronger than a 
carter.” 

The boy burst into laughter, an occurrence 
so rare that Mrs. Pentland gazed at him in 
pleased surprise, 

“How glad I am to hear you laugh again! 
I’ve been afraid something was troubling 
you.” 

“There was something,” rejoined the boy, 
forcing his laughter to a still higher pitch, 
“but no more! Ha ha ha ha ha!” 

She embraced him affectionately, 

“Oh! I’m so glad to have you say that, 
Arthur. You see, dear, we simply must bear 
in mind that we can’t enjoy any peace until we 
throw off our troubles. Besides, it is ridicu- 




38 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


lous to take them seriously, for most of them 
are imaginary as Santa Claus, and not half 
as pleasant. It is our duty to refuse to believe 
in such things. If we steadfastly neglect to 
think or speak of them, they will end up by 
disappearing! The way to be happy is to 
think of happy things, and ignore all else.” 

He nodded in agreement, whispering 
slowly, 

“I must think of happy things. 

and ignore all else.because it is a 

lie.” 

Suddenly he burst into tears, weeping so 
wildly and passionately that the fond-hearted 
mother was quite beside herself. She kissed 
him and hugged him and told him he was her 
own precious boy, but curiously enough this 
only made him sob more violently,—then he 
stopped crying as suddenly as he had be¬ 
gun. 

Why was Arthur sad? 

“I am not sad,” he answered. “I don’t 
know why I was crying.” 

“But boys of your age don’t cry without 
good reason,” returned the puzzled mother. 
“Something must have grieved you, dear. 





CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 39 


Was it because I didn’t feel like playing on 
the harpsichord for you last night?” 

“No.” 

“Was it because you miss poor dear grand¬ 
father?” 

The boy’s face changed subtly. 

“No!” he broke out. “I don’t miss him. 
I’m glad the Fleshless One took him, because 
now you shall love no one but me.” 

X 

Mrs. Pentland was shocked to have her 
Arthur say he was glad the old grandfather 
was dead, at the same time she made no 
attempt to conceal her pleasure at his desire 
to monopolize her affections. On the con¬ 
trary, she seized every opportunity to assure 
him that all of her love was for him, and for 
no one else, not even the tiniest part of it. He 
believed her, and as a consequence no ripple 
came to disturb the tranquillity of his devotion, 
—until he was twelve years of age. 

In August of that year, 1793, news of a 
virulent outbreak of yellow fever in Phila¬ 
delphia reached the village of Pittsburgh. The 
news was received with dismay, for although 




40 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


the town lay far from the scene which was 
being ravaged by the disease, it was feared 
that refugees from the stricken city might 
bring the plague along with them, and thus, 
while intent upon preserving their own lives, 
infect an innocent population. Fear! Con¬ 
sternation! How guard against the menace? 
Every family must lay in a stock of garlic, 
nitre, camphor, and other homely remedies! 
Quick! 

Mrs. Pentland hastily dispatched her son 
to the apothecary shop. He bought the 
precious drugs, and paused to listen to a knot 
of townspeople who had got hold of a some¬ 
what recent newspaper: it gave numerous and 
vivid details of the gruesome drama being 
enacted in the eastern metropolis. The wide- 
eyed boy drank in every word with avidity, a 
cold perspiration starting from his skin, and 
when the gossips had dispersed he hurried 
home, mumbling, with that fascination which 
so often obliged us to gloat over horrible 
things, 

“Yellow fever, yellow fever. The apothe¬ 
cary said it’s ’most always fatal. Sometimes 
it takes every member of the family. They 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 41 


all die. The bells toll all day and all night. 
Hearses all over the streets. When people 
go out, they keep to the windward of each 
other. They build bonfires to purify the air. 
They must be sure to sniff handkerchiefs 
soaked in vinegar. Then they die. They 
have a bad smell, a brown smell like grand¬ 
father. It flies on wings. Pretty soon it will 
get to Pittsburgh. People will begin to die. 
Then they will be like the Fleshless One. 
Oh! oh! oh!” 

Muttering in this disjointed fashion he got 
home, but when he stumbled into the living 


room his mother was not there.not 

there.dull misery surged into his 

eyes.not there.where was 

she? He gazed heavily about.With 

white face and chattering teeth he dragged 


himself up the stairs. Pushing open the door 
of her room he stepped in,—and halted to 
stare in surprise, for Mrs. Pentland was sitting 
on the floor with a bundle of letters in her 
lap, a guilty flush on her face. She had taken 
down the long wavy brown hair which had 
formerly been her chief glory; at the unex¬ 
pected entrance of her son she hastily pinned 
it up. 








42 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


His eyes had narrowed in suspicion, 

“What have you got there?” 

By this time the mother had got back her 
composure, and was tying up the tattered 
sheets with a faded ribbon. 

“Merely some old letters,” she explained. 
“They were written to me long ago by a Mr. 
Crawford, an old childhood friend in Phila¬ 
delphia. I’m afraid he has fallen a victim to 
the yellow fever.” 

The boy’s face filled with dark blood. He 
burst out passionately, 

“I hope he has! Ido! Ido! Ido!” 

In a paroxysm of rage he kicked and 
struck the bedpost again and again, accusing 
his mother of disloyalty, screaming out that 
she no longer loved him, and repeating over 
and over that she actually wished him dead, 
so that she could give all of her affection to 
the hated one in Philadelphia. In vain did 
the weeping mother beg him to be reasonable. 
Mr. Crawford, she insisted, was an old friend, 
and it was natural that she be somewhat con¬ 
cerned for his safety at a time when the plague 
was sweeping his native city. In vain all this, 
the boy would not listen. He wept and raged 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 43 


and said some very unpleasant things, and at 
length he tore himself from her clawing hands 
and rushed from the room. 

Down the stairs he dashed, out the door, 
and away along the river bank, plunging 
through puddles of mud and scratching him¬ 
self in thickets. He tore his hair and ground 
his teeth upon the loathsome name of Craw¬ 
ford, all the while assuring the calm summer 
day that he hoped his accursed rival would 
die of yellow fever and go to Hell and be 
thrown head first into a cauldron of boiling 
lead. All this and much more, but presently 
his frenzy passed away,—leaving him weak 
and listless. He paused, looked heavily about, 
and circled back toward the village. For more 
than an hour he wandered around, drearily, 
aimlessly, and then to ease the trembling in 
his legs, he sat down. 

Across the street stood a tavern, and pres¬ 
ently he heard a racket and saw the door burst 
open: the landlord and a pair of travellers 
hurtled out, locked in what at first sight 
appeared to be one of those loving embraces 
which so often accompany leave-taking. The 
words which went with this pantomime, how- 




44 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


ever, showed it to have less to do with affec¬ 
tion than with the wayfarers’ objection to 
paying for what they didn’t get—or were they 
lying? A number of idlers strolled up to 
watch the fun, but Arthur Pentland paid no 
attention. Up and down the rutted street 
oxen were lurching with their heavy carts, but 
the boy saw them not. All about him the air 
was ringing with the sound of hammer and 
saw and axe, as new buildings took shape 
under the hands of workmen, yet he was 
oblivious to this, also. He seemed to be in 
the world but not of it, and it was only when 
the rays of the westering sun fell upon his face 
that he roused up. 

Slowly he got to his feet, gazing about as 
one benumbed by dull and sick despair. The 
sun sank lower, and now the creeping shadows 
startled him out of his coma. With his head 
jerking restlessly from side to side he set off 
toward home, walking faster and faster as the 
light fled away before the oncoming twilight, 
until within sight of the gate he began to run 
as if all the fiends of the black and unknown 
night were at his heels. 

Garden, porch, door—rushed into the 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 45 


house and seized his mother in his arms. 
Covering her with tears and kisses, he filled 
her ear with protestations of love and begged 
her to forgive him for what he’d said and 
done, but hadn’t meant, and she in turn 
caressed and fondled him as some precious 
thing which had been lost and now was found, 
assuring him, with trembling lips, that it was 
she, and not he, who must plead for forgive¬ 
ness. The boy nestled to her with a delicious 
little shiver, his voice full of awe and wonder, 

“Mother darling, it was like a terrible 
blackness to run out of the house and leave 
you like that. There’s no light, no happiness, 
no world without you. Everything is horrid 
when I am away from you, and when I am with 
you, tight in your arms like this, everything is 
glorious, wonderful. I want nothing but you, 
darling mother, nothing but you and your love. 
.... and that is all I shall ever need, isn’t 
it?” 

“Dear, dear Arthur, how I love you.” 

XI 

Dear, dear Arthur, how she loved him! 
Loved him, and guarded him against the im- 




46 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


pacts of the unfriendly world, for though the 
passing years changed the frail boy into a 
strong youth at least a head taller than her¬ 
self, he was still her little Arthur, her baby, 
her darling, so superior to other young men, 
so different. 

“What a pleasant life we lead,” she mur¬ 
mured one day. They were returning from 
a stroll with their arms full of cherry blos¬ 
soms. 

A pleasant life, yes. 

“But dear me,” she continued, “you are 
growing up fast. I suppose it will be only 
a matter of time before you marry, and 
abandon your poor mother to despair and 
loneliness.” 

Never! 

“And of course,” sighing carefully, “of 
course it will be one of these modern girls. 
Modern they may be,” she went on severely, 
“but the word indecent fits them better. The 
present state of feminine dress is not only in 
very poor taste, it is actually immoral. Why, 
it’s loathsome, revolting! In my day, there 
was some notion of modesty, but nowadays 
it seems they actually want to display their 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 47 


ankles. Yes, and more than that. It was 
only last week that I saw a creature on the 
street with short sleeves and arms entirely 
bare! When I was a girl, Arthur, it was con¬ 
sidered decorous, if not actually imperative, 
to wear at least two petticoats, and often as 
many as six, but at the present time it is the 
mode to lay aside such articles altogether, and 
to dress as thinly as possible a la Franqaise. 
Why, when one of these young ladies of 
fashion gets between the eye and the sun with 
her shameful gauze and muslin, it is enough 
to make well-bred people look in another 
direction. Oh dear! it is dreadful to think 
that you will be ensnared by such a—” 

“Oh wait,” he interrupted. “Let me help 
you.” 

They were turning in their own gate, and 
Mrs. Pentland’s dress had caught on a picket. 
There was an odd gleam in her eyes as he 
bent to release her, and as they went on up 
the gravelled path, she said in a tight thin 
voice, 

“You are as chivalrous as your father, 
Arthur, and as handsome. You have the same 
straight hair, the same gray eyes, the same 




48 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


clear-cut features. Your jaw, though, is more 
tenacious than his: that part of your face is 
more like Grandfather Morton. How I shall 
miss you when you leave me for—” 

“Mother!” 

“But certainly you intend to marry?” 

“Mother dear, I assure you I shall never 
marry. I shall be a bachelor and stay with 
you always.” 

With this he politely opened the door for 
her, and they went in. Mrs. Pentland put 
down her blossoms carelessly, intent, not upon 
a vase of water, but upon the lithe straight¬ 
standing youth who had followed her into the 
living room. 

“Would it please you to stay with me 
always?” she murmured. 

“Nothing could please me more. Why, 
mother, don’t you know that you are every¬ 
thing to me, everything! Other people are 
so neutral and uninteresting; they irritate me 
when we are with them. I am on tenterhooks 
until I have you all to myself again. I can¬ 
not account for it in any other way than that 
you, and you alone, are necessary to my com¬ 
plete happiness.” 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 49 


She threw her arms about his neck and 
kissed him on the mouth, kissed him warmly. 
Her eyes, ordinarily a soft brown, had deep¬ 
ened in color until they were a wet glistening 
black, and her thin nostrils flared in sup¬ 
pressed excitement as she whispered tensely, 

66 Are you sure?” 

“Of what?” 

“That you’ll never love another woman?” 

He gazed down upon her in bepuzzlement, 
his lips curling to a careless smile, 

“Quite sure, Mother. I have given you all of 
my love,—how then is there any for any one 
else? Pshaw, I could never be attracted by the 
brazen creatures you’ve been talking about. 
And besides, you yourself are my sweetheart, 
and one far more lovely and charming than 
any other woman could possibly be.” 

XII 

Mrs. Pentland declared that all this was 
an exaggeration, nevertheless she redoubled 
her efforts to enhance her personal charms. 
Fortunately she had never shown a tendency 
toward stoutness, and though her bust had 
insisted upon falling, the adroit arrangement 




50 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


of a strong pair of corsets encouraged it to 
rise again, until in bulk at least it was quite 
the equal of a much younger bosom. Her 
hair was graying, but the contents of a bottle 
ordered from New York persuaded it to re¬ 
main brown, while the use of certain small 
articles of tin enabled it to stay extraordi¬ 
narily curly by day, whatever it may have 
looked like by night. 

As the result of a maidenly swoon many 
years before, her left temple showed a small 
scar, but since Arthur declared that this 
actually added to her good looks, she did not 
try to conceal it. It was this, his penchant 
for compliments, which brought a winning 
smile to her otherwise thin and unattractive 
lips, and which did much more than herb 
lotions to bring a tingling color back into her 
cheeks. Middle age had sent her the usual 
wrinkles, but those in her neck did not show 
very plainly, and as for the creases about her 
eyes diligence and long hours erased them 
altogether. 

All of these endeavors bore fruit in the form 
of a still greater devotion from her son, and 
it was with secret satisfaction that she realized 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 51 


his lack of interest in other women to be no 
idle talk. As a matter of fact, her power over 
him was complete, and in proportion as she 
became convinced of this, she took pains slyly 
to extend over the youth that dominating 
influence which she had maintained over the 
child, and to instill into his mind the con¬ 
servatism which had become more and more 
characteristic of her as she grew older. 

“I suppose I am old-fashioned,” she sighed 
one day, “but to see the nineteenth century 
open with the triumph of this Jefferson is 
really enough to make one shudder with fore¬ 
boding. I used to think your grandfather was 
unduly pessimistic about the future of the 
country, but I must say,” pulling down the 
corners of her mouth, “that if our presidents 
are to become progressively democratic, we 
may expect the worst. Don’t you think so, 
Arthur?” 

“I do indeed, Mother.” 

She smoothed her skirts until they gave out 
a faint rustle of silk, and went on primly, 

“It seems to me that the aim of the demo¬ 
crats is to deliver us over to anarchy and 
pandemonium. They intend to force us to 




52 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


submit to the control of an ignorant and 
illiterate rabble. In my opinion, this elec¬ 
tion paves the way for the destruction of the 
last vestiges of culture and civilization. What 
is your opinion, Arthur?” 

Arthur’s opinion was that it was a most 
unfortunate development. 

“Doubly so,” went on Mrs. Pentland, and 
raised her eyes from her embroidery to give 
him a significant look. 

He left off caressing the little black mous¬ 
tache which had lately appeared upon him, 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“In less than a year you will be twenty- 
one, my dear, and hence entitled to the ballot. 
But what a discouraging situation, now that 
the political outlook has become so hopeless. 
Why really, it is enough to make one lose all 
interest in politics.” 

The little moustache received several very 
firm and decisive strokes, 

“It is certainly causing me to lose interest 

in the elective process.I think I’ll 

simply neglect to use my vote. I have no 
desire to mingle with an ignorant and illiter¬ 
ate rabble simply for the purpose of trying to 





CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 53 


influence the political fortunes of a country 
with which I have so little in common.” 

Mrs. Pentland put down her work to nod 
approval. 

“I shan’t blame you,” she said. “Nothing 
is to be gained from mixing with all these 
vulgar affairs. Thank Heaven your grand¬ 
father’s investments are yielding so com¬ 
fortable an income that it won’t be necessary 
for you to enter politics or any other pro¬ 
fession for the sake of the money. We shall 
have to go on living here, in order to look 
out for our land interests, but at least we can 
live to ourselves. One can do so, of course, 
just as one can shut out bad air by closing 
the windows.” 

“An excellent illustration,” cried the son. 
“When the world turns foul, one can, to use 
a figure of speech, close the windows and stay 
indoors. It seems to me that is true wisdom. 
Yes, I quite agree with you, Mother. Close 
the windows, that’s it, precisely!” 

XIII 

And so, to use a figure of speech, they 
closed the windows and stayed indoors, shut- 




54 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


ting out the rude and barbarous world and 
creating a little universe of their own, wherein 
the years passed happily, a succession of bland 
summers, unheeded fragments of time flowing 
softly as a tranquil river. 

Mrs. Pentland was quite content, and well 
she might be, for no woman could have had 
a more devoted son. A gallant son, likewise, 
of manners so meticulously correct that she 
was in the habit of referring to him as factus 
homo , a phrase which she translated as “a 
gentleman to the finger tips.” Factus homo , 
of medium stature and fairly robust, carrying 
himself stiffly erect and inclined to hitch his 
shoulders nervously. Factus homo , with 
features strongly cast, the hair jet black, the 
mouth sensitive yet firm, in short a handsome 
face,—a strong face, too, save for the eyes, 
which were strangely light in color, a pale 
clear gray. He dressed conservatively, and 
in general had the tastes of a former gener¬ 
ation. 

At the age of thirty-five he quoted Horace 
with the flourish of a man a dozen years his 
senior, and when he took liquor he preferred 
a mild claret or sherry to the more potent 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 55 


French and Spanish brandies. Usually he 
drank in great moderation, but when mentally 
disturbed he was likely to imbibe to excess. 
Mrs. Pentland had learned to regard his use 
of the decanter as a kind of barometer, so that 
when at table one evening he had indulged 
rather freely, she noted the fact with motherly 
concern. As they passed into the library arm 
in arm, she murmured, 

“What is troubling you, Arthur?” 

He gave a jerky little laugh, 

“I hardly know. It is something I dreamt 
last night. No doubt it’s silly, nevertheless 
it has clung to me all day.” 

Mrs. Pentland thoughtfully lit the candles 
on the mantelpiece, and took a chair, waving 
him toward another. 

“Thank you,” he said, “but I prefer to walk 
up and down a little, if you don’t mind. It 
eases me, somehow.” 

He fell to pacing to and fro, followed by 
the affectionate gaze of his mother. After a 
moment he continued, 

“You see.well, it is very obscure, 

and perfect nonsense, I suppose, but last night 
a most extraordinary dream came to me. It 




56 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


seems that as I lay in bed there gathered over 
me an impalpable mass, a weighty bulk hav¬ 
ing neither color nor form, neither outline nor 
substance, yet bearing down upon me with 
indescribable oppression. A species of suf¬ 
focation descended upon me,—it was really 
horrid. I was powerless to move my limbs or 
to raise my voice in order to call to you for 
help, then at the very instant that this strange 
burden seemed to me unendurable, it changed 
into a whirling chaos, turbulent, seething in 
frightful confusion, a turmoil in which I was 
hurled to and fro in most nauseating fashion, 

until subtly it all resolved itself into. 

Oh how ridiculous, don’t you think so?” 

“Go on.” 

“Very well. This mass or whatever it was, 
seemed to change under my very eyes into a 
definite form, taking on the outlines of a 
human being, a man. I saw him quite dis¬ 
tinctly, really. He was very large, broad in 
the shoulders, with blond hair and gray eyes, 
though of a shade somewhat darker than my 
own. His complexion was ruddy, and there 
was about him something indescribably pow¬ 
erful and compelling, indeed his very gaze 





CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 57 


seemed to pry me out of bed and to my feet, 
causing me—” 

“It is your somnambulism again.” 

“No, Mother, I don’t think so. I’m positive 
I haven’t walked in my sleep since I was a 
small boy. The experience of last night does 
not appear to me to be somnambulistic. Curi¬ 
ously enough, it was more as if I were awaken¬ 
ing from dream to reality, for the most vivid 
and glorious appearance settled upon every¬ 
thing which I saw or touched. It was a kind 
of ecstasy in which I was a minute fragment in 
a vast and mysterious pattern, but a pattern 
vaguely frightening, severe and repellent, so 
that I held back from it,—whereupon it all 
vanished, and I awoke in a cold sweat.” 

The mother seemed on the point of speak¬ 
ing, when with a little laugh he turned his pale 
eyes upon her and went on, 

“Absurd, no doubt, and yet all day I have 
had the strangest sensation of jerkiness, of a 

rhythm in my legs, as if.as if I were 

about to go travelling.” 

Mrs. Pentland gave a little cry, but he 
hastened to reassure her, 

“No, it isn’t that either, or at least it is 





58 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


not travel in the commonly understood sense 
of the term. It is rather a kind of impulse to 
a quest, a journey without travelling, a ridicu¬ 
lous statement, of course. Pshaw! the entire 
notion is highly fantastical, for no one could 
be more opposed to roaming than I. My world 
lies within four walls, with you, dear mother, 
and I am content, wishing nothing more. A 
few books, the pungent odor of the wood fire, 
the harpsichord, and you as my queen. Why! 
I am a king, a god, a perfectly happy man. 
.... I wonder why such an impulse to be 
journeying should come to me, of all people. 
Why do you suppose it is, Mother?” 

“It is no doubt your Muse,” was the bland 
explanation. “Like your father, you are 
poetical by nature, and all this is simply 
material to be used for verses. Your father, 
as I have told you many times, wrote delight¬ 
ful rhymes. Perhaps you are destined to fol¬ 
low in his footsteps.” 

With a nervous hitch of his shoulders the 
son paused. He twisted the ends of his mous¬ 
tache for a thoughtful moment, and smiled 
wanly, 

“Perhaps so.How amusing that 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 59 


would be.to turn one’s dreams into 

poetry!” 

He had no sooner said this than he burst 
into a fit of hysterical laughter. 

“My dear Arthur!” cried Mrs. Pentland, 
“you are letting these fancies upset you. Put 
them out of your mind, do! Let me read to 
you.” 

“As you like,” he muttered, and sank 
weakly into a chair. 

She went to the bookshelves, and turned to 
ask, 

“What would you like, dear?” 

“Paradise Lost.” 

“But.that is so.so 

devoid of light. Wouldn’t you prefer Addison 
or Steele, or maybe this new volume sent us 
by Mr. Crawford?” 

“Mr. Crawford?” and he looked up sharply. 

“Yes dear, he sent it last week, don’t you 
remember? Or perhaps I forgot to mention 
it. It is a book by a new author. Mr. Craw¬ 
ford thinks he has some talent. Let me read 
a little of it. It is a history of New York, by 
a Mr. Knickerbocker.” 

Pentland reached for the decanter but made 






60 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


no reply, and the mother, interpreting his 
silence as consent, sat down and began to read. 
She had learned not to expect too consistent 
an attention from her son, but this evening 
his mind appeared more than ordinarily dis¬ 
traught, and at length she paused, 

“But you are not listening.” 

He gave a start, 

“I beg your pardon.but really, 

it’s rather silly, isn’t it? Old books are best.” 
She closed the volume, 

“I quite agree with you. Old books are 
best. Somehow old things are always best: 
old books, old furniture, old customs, old 
friends. In all of our years here in Pittsburgh 
I have never made the acquaintance of any 
one as truly deserving of friendship as Mr. 
Crawford.” 

The son poured himself another drink, 
“He has been on your mind a great deal 
lately.” 

Mrs. Pentland flushed, and hastily picked 
up her embroidery. With her eyes upon her 
work, she murmured hesitatingly, 

“It is true, and I hope you will not mis¬ 
understand what I wish to say to you.” 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 61 


“I shall be glad to listen,” was the cool 
rejoinder. 

“Mr. Crawford and I were children to¬ 
gether,” pursued the mother. “I have not 
seen him for more than thirty-five years. He 
is only an old friend, of course—certainly 

nothing more, I assure you—but. 

Well, to come to the heart of the matter, Mr. 
Crawford wants to pay us a visit in the near 
future. He has always shown great interest 
in you, Arthur. I know you and he will prove 
great friends when you—” 

“I do not make friends easily,” said Pent- 
land, and got up to kick the andirons back into 
the fireplace. 

A sly obstinacy crept into the mother’s 
voice, 

“I know you don’t, but you will find Mr. 
Crawford very nice, I’m very very sure. Come, 
Arthur, I confess that I want to invite him to 
come, though of course I shan’t if you are 
going to distress me by offering violent objec¬ 
tions.” 

The andirons received another kick apiece, 
but Pentland’s words came evenly, 

“Violent objections? Certainly not! Do 




62 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


have him come, by all means. Yes, of course, 
of course. Why not?” 

XIV 

It was some days later that Mrs. Pentland 
sat reading her son a letter which had arrived 
only that afternoon. 

“According to this, he will be here on Fri¬ 
day. If we—why Arthur! what is the matter? 
Are you ill?” 

He leaned back in his chair with closed eyes. 

“I—I, why yes,” he murmured. “I feel a 
little faint—dizzy—rub my forehead if you 
don’t mind—I think that will help.” 

He thought it would, but it didn’t, for the 
very touch of her hand brought a cry of 
anguish to his twisting lips,—curious about 
these faint dizzy spells, very. He grew worse. 
Also, his temper went the way of his strange 
malady, and when for the third time Mrs. 
Pentland offered him her all-powerful harts¬ 
horn, it was only by biting his lip in several 
places that he kept back words which (had he 
let them out) would have added nothing to 
his reputation as factus homo . 

Next morning he did not get up, but lay 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 63 


in bed, pale and listless, his burning eyes fol¬ 
lowing the mother as she moved about the 
room, and his hoarse voice protesting in sud¬ 
den anger if she left his side for more than a 
few moments. Monday and Tuesday passed, 
Wednesday came, and still the sufferer kept 
to his bed. Thursday arrived, and at last Fri¬ 
day dawned. 

Was he better? 

No, he was worse. 

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Pentland, affecting a 
sigh, “this is so upsetting. Mr. Crawford will 
be so sorry to find you in bed. He is arriving 
this afternoon, you know.” 

“Yes!” exclaimed her son, with sudden 
force. “How time flies! Here it is already 
Friday. We are about to see each other face 

to face.face to face. I hope he will 

be in good health!” 

She gave him a slow curious smile, 

“That is very sweet of you, and—” 

“And what?” 

“I was just thinking,” she went on, gaz¬ 
ing out of the window. “The trip from Phila¬ 
delphia is so long and rough, and the stage¬ 
coaches so uncomfortable, that he will prob- 





64 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


ably be very tired when he arrives. Our own 
carriage is so much more easy that—” 

“Quite true,” broke in her son, wetting his 
feverish lips. “Our own carriage is so much 
more easy! I suggest that we drive out to 
The Sign of The Red Lion and meet him. 
Horses are changed there for the dash into 
Pittsburgh. He could get in and return with 
us; that would be more comfortable for him 
than riding in the stagecoach.” 

“That is precisely what I was thinking of,” 
said Mrs. Pentland, still gazing out of the 
window. “But I am wondering if it would be 
proper for me to drive out to meet him.” 

“Ha ha ha ha ha! Go to meet him while I 
lie abed like this? He’d think me a child! 
Certainly! you’ll not go without me. I am 
going with you.” 

“But you are ill!” 

“I’m feeling better, thank you.” 

“No, my dear, you must stay in bed. I’ll 
go alone.” 

“The trip will do me good. Besides, it will 
afford me the satisfaction of being present 
when you greet him. Please send George to 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 65 


me. I’ll dress at once. We must start right 
after lunch.” 

XV 

Mrs. Pentland appeared at luncheon in a 
new gown of dove gray, scented with lavender. 
There was considerable color in her cheeks, 
and her hair had been curled and looped down 
on the left to conceal the scar on her temple. 
She asked her son how she looked, and when 
he said that she looked extremely well, she 
simpered a little and declared that he was a 
flatterer. He made no reply, and when the 
meal was over, he silently escorted her to 
where the horses stood waiting. With elabo¬ 
rate politeness he handed her into the car¬ 
riage, and seated himself at her side. 

“How stately our old brick house is getting 
to look,” smiled Mrs. Pentland. “It is quite 
as handsome as many of the old mansions in 
Philadelphia.” 

“No doubt,” said the son dryly, and took 
the reins from the servant. 

They set out. 

It was a day in late autumn, one of those 
melancholy and disquieting days when the eye 
searches in vain for even a pale wan sun. 




66 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


From horizon to horizon the heavens were a 
vast sweep of murky grayness, a dull im¬ 
mensity under which the earth lay inert and 
bloodless. The ground was cold and bare, 
ragged with vegetation long past bloom, faded 
relics that shivered at the approach of the 
wind, the restless capricious drifting wind. A 
few leaves still clung to the parent stem, but 
for the most part the trees were naked, and 
very still: there was no sound save the rattle 
of dry branch against dry branch, this and the 
whine of the wheels of the Pentland carriage. 

“I hope the sun will shine again,” mur¬ 
mured the mother, and drew her cloak about 
her shoulders. 

“Eh?” exclaimed Arthur, jerking round. 
“Oh yes, to be sure.” 

The carriage rolled on, slow, sedate, the son 
absently flicking the rumps of the horses with 
his whip, the mother chatting with animation, 

“Won’t he be surprised to have us come to 
meet him?” 

“Um, I quite agree.” 

At that moment the air was pierced by the 
blast of a horn. 

Mrs. Pentland sat up stiffly, 




CHILD YOUTH AND MAN 67 


“It’s the horn of the stagecoach, isn’t it? 
I’m afraid the driver is signalling the pas¬ 
sengers to take their places. They must have 
arrived at The Sign of The Red Lion in early 
season. They’re about to set out again.” 

The horn sounded a second time. 

“Quick!” cried the mother. “Whip up 
the horses, or we’ll be too late.” 

With a cry Arthur Pentland raised the whip 
and brought it down upon the horses with a 
smart blow. The animals sprang forward, 
dashing round a sharp curve to where the 
turnpike ran up a steep hill. Racing toward 
them there then appeared, half way down this 
precipitous slope, four great black horses 
foaming wet, drawing at breakneck speed a 
stagecoach which swayed wildly from side to 
side. The driver saw that the Pentland car¬ 
riage was in his way, but though he strained 
madly to check his descent, it was too late. 




A Charm Against The 

Fleshless One 




P 









I 


All night long he paced the floor. 

Dawn came, and presently a ray of sunlight 
crept through the window to fall upon the 
features of the haggard and unquiet one. He 
halted his fretful feet, poured a glass of 
brandy down his throat, and with his hands 
behind his back went on striding back and 
forth, his furtive gaze upon the floor. 

The light of the new fresh day glowed 
warm, glowed bright and brighter, until it 
showed him plainly: his hair was a tangled 
black confusion, his pale eyes were colorless 
as glass, his lips sagged with pain, the dainty 
little moustache stood out grotesque against 
that wretched pallid face. He gave a little 

moan.whirled to see a negro servant 

come into the room. 

“Didn’t yo’ git no sleep las’ night, Mast’ 
Ahthuh?” 

Pentland’s bloodshot eyes sent out a glim¬ 
mer. 

“Sleep! ” he echoed hollowly. “Sleep! ” 

71 



72 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


The servant bowed and said something 
about breakfast. 

No. Get out. Leave me alone. 

The negro went away. 

Pentland had wanted to be alone, and yet 
as he listened to the footsteps fading down 
the hall, his uneasiness grew, and grew. 

Anxiety pulsed into his face.He 

brought his dull uncertain eyes to a bit of 
embroidery which lay unfinished upon a little 
table, shuddered, turned on his heel and 
strode out the door, into another room, and 
from there to yet another and another, thread¬ 
ing the deserted house in vague torment and 
anguish, a hunted creature wandering, roam¬ 
ing, but finding no peace. All the weary day 
thus striding, then twilight soft and creeping 
dusk, and after that the twisting and lugubri¬ 
ous shadows of the night. Suddenly he 
paused, gazed about fearfully, and gave a bit¬ 
ter cry, 

“George!” 

The black man came running in. 

“In God’s name,” cried Pentland, “what is 
it? There! I hear it again!” 

The servant listened.grinned, 





THE FLESHLESS ONE 


73 


“Ho! Masteh, dat’s jes’ a hoss sneezin’. 
Yo’ sho’ ain’t skeered of a hoss, is yo’ ?” 

“A horse? .... Damn you, what are you 
staring at me for? Light the rest of those 
candles, every one of them.” 

With a convulsive sigh he sank into a chair 
and held his hands to the fire blazing on the 
hearth, 

“Another log! God! how cold it is. 

cold, cold, cold. You rascal, I said two logs. 
Put on another.” 

The sweating black did as he was told, and 
slipped out of the room, leaving the master 
huddled before the fire, fretting his hands and 
muttering disjointedly. 

In a little while the servant came back with 
a tray of food, 

“Mast’ Ahthuh, yo’ ain’t had nothin’ to eat 
fo’ de longes’ time Ah don’ know. Kate she 
made dis toast fo’ yo’, an’ I fix dis tea mahself. 
Jes’ look at dem peaches, ain’t dey grandoy- 
ous? Yo’ jes’ try one o’ dem, Masteh.” 

Pentland was sniffing at the tray. 

His eyes widened, 

“You scoundrel! how dare you bring me 
food with that horrible odor?” 






74 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Fo’ de Lo’d,” protested the astonished 
servant, “Ah swears dis am good eatin’. It 
don’ have no bad smell, Masteh, Lo’d bless 
yo’, it don’.” 

“Take it away! Throw it out—and listen! 
You will have the house aired to-morrow, the 
entire house, or be flogged to an inch of your 
life. I tell you there’s a foul odor, a thick 

brown smell that.that.Lock 

up, and make sure you bar every window on 
the lower floor.” 

He dragged himself to his feet and began 
to stride up and down before the fire, while 
the crestfallen George examined the windows 

to make sure they were securely fastened. 

With a gasp the slave bounded back into the 
center of the room. 

“Confound you—” 

“Masteh! Dare’s somebody out dare by de 
missus’s grave!” 

“What!” 

“Ah swears fo’ de Lo’d dey is. Ah seed 
him jes’ now when Ah look out. Ah swears 
Ah’m a-tellin’ yo’ de truf, Mast’ Ahthuh, fo’ 
de Lo’d Ah am.” 

With an incredulous scowl for wide-eyed 







THE FLESHLESS ONE 


75 


George, the master strode to the door, stepped 
outside. There in the moonlight, beside the 
grave of his mother, stood a man, a tall thin 
figure loosely held together. His hair was 
white; his head was bowed upon his breast, 
as if in prayer. At Pentland’s step he looked 
up, showing a face benign but flabby, a nose 
extremely long, the lips full and limply open. 
It was Mr. Crawford. 


II 

Pentland glared at the old man with sullen 
eyes; Mr. Crawford returned his gaze meekly, 
saying at length, 

“I am intruding again, you see.” 

Silence. 

“I shan’t offer excuses,” went on the stran¬ 
ger. “I had to come back because my heart 
lies buried here. I loved your mother.” 

This was said with so much gentleness, so 
much humility and earnestness, that anger 
faded out of Pentland’s face. With an im¬ 
pulsive step forward, he seized the hand of 
the older man, gazing upon him in trembling 
silence. 

“Do I need to assure you of my sympathy?” 




76 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


asked Mr. Crawford. “You have it. In such 
extremities words are weak, yet we resort to 
them. Perhaps it is well that we do, for vain 
though they be, they serve in some measure to 
ease our aching hearts.” 

A groan for answer. 

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall 
be comforted.” 

“Comforted!” exclaimed Pentland. “Do 
not mock me. For me there is no comfort.” 

“But surely our Heavenly Father—” 

“Enough! Our Heavenly Father, as you 
call Him, has given me the most grievous 
wound that could possibly have come to me. 
You spoke to me of God’s will at the funeral, 
but I ask you, sir, was it God’s will that my 
mother be taken from me without an instant’s 
warning? Was it God’s will that those cruel 
horses strike her down, mangling her body 
beyond recognition? Well, if such be the will 
of God, I proclaim Him a monster!” 

Mr. Crawford was surprised, pained, 

“Your language is extreme.” 

“If you shared my grief you would not think 


“I do share it.” 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


77 


“Bah!” 

The old man’s face tightened, 

“I loved your mother since childhood, be¬ 
lieve me. She cared for me, but not as much 
as she did for your father. She married him. 
I tried to prove a true friend to both of them. 
He was killed in the War, and she moved to 
this place. Years went by. We corresponded 
regularly. As I have explained before, she 
at last consented to marry me. I set out for 
Pittsburgh. She was struck down by the very 
coach in which I was hurrying to her side. 
She died without opening her eyes upon me. 
What a melancholy disaster, and yet—” 

“And yet?” mockingly. 

“And yet we have no right to set ourselves 
up as judges. We mortals are weak in under¬ 
standing.” 

“Ha!” 

“God works in a mysterious way His won¬ 
ders to perform.” 

“Your words have sound, but no meaning,” 
snarled Pentland. “My woe is beyond the reach 
of theological platitude. Religion holds no 
promise for me, none whatsoever.” 

“But surely you believe in God?” 




78 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


66 As a child I did, but experience destroyed 
my faith. I grew older. I began to think for 
myself. The anthropomorphic ideal became 
a self-evident absurdity, and God a being as 
mythical as Santa Claus.” 

“Oh!” 

“I turned from Him to things which I could 
understand—grasp—to realities—most of all 
to my mother. She became my deity. I wor¬ 
shipped her.” 

“But—” 

“Just a moment. Let me have my say. My 
pent-up heart must purge itself of its woeful 
burden, just as my understanding has already 
purged itself of the illusion of religion. For 
religion is a snare, a myth, a lie, a base phan¬ 
tom in which there is guile but no solid use. 
There is no God, and I for one will no longer 
pretend that there is! Shadow, invention, a 
cruel and mocking jest, there’s your God! 
Reality is what I crave, but that fled when she 
died. Yes, all reality has vanished from my 
life, save that of Fear.” 

The cool calm moon looked softly down 
upon the two men there beside the grave, as 
Pentland went on with a tremulous voice, 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


79 


“Fear! Fear, my unseen twin as far back 
as I can remember. All through infancy and 
childhood it tortured me, choking me, stifling 
me until existence itself was a horror, color¬ 
ing my entire life awake or asleep, absorbing 
my attention as a sore spot in the body makes 
us forget everything else, destroying in me 
all sense of well-being, distorting every single 
thing that my mind fixed upon. Fear and 
always fear, forever apprehension and timid¬ 
ity, vague disquietude. I cringed from it all, 
shrank back! fled to my mother for comfort 
and assurance—unfortunately she herself was 
obsessed by fear.” 

“I can’t believe it,” protested Mr. Craw¬ 
ford. “You do her wrong.” 

Sneering Pentland, 

“I do her justice. You never knew her as 
I knew her,—you couldn’t. Even when I was 
a baby in her arms I felt instinctively that her 
very bones were carious from a besetting dread 
which she could not conceal. As I grew up I 
saw it plainer upon her,—and yet I played a 
game with her, and she with me. The two 
of us were a trembling pair gripped tight by 
Fear, a horrid ulcer common to both of us, and 




80 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


when we crushed it back it seeped down into 
our blood and poisoned us. It ought to have 
been allowed to burst forth to purify itself by 
sunlight, but we made the mistake of pre¬ 
tending that Life casts no shadow, avoiding 
talk of unpleasant things, ignoring, as best we 
could, the Thing that leered upon us. I 
thought I had outgrown it, but when she died 
there flashed upon me, like a thunderbolt out 
of Heaven, the Great Clarification!” 

Mr. Crawford broke in eagerly, 

“The Great Clarification? What do you 
mean?” 

“I mean the perception that all fear is at 
bottom a fear of death! As I stood beside the 
open grave, here where she was lowered into 
the earth, I saw my old familiar enemy at 
last in his true form. I realized, then, that 
all phobias are of the things which shackle 
man toward the abatement of his life. Child¬ 
hood fear of the unknown! boyish terror of 
disease! uneasy looking about for the devil at 
nightfall! bad dreams! suspicion of paralysis! 
yellow fever! these and a thousand other ter¬ 
rors were shown to have been decoys, lures 
sent to keep my eye in the wrong direction, 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


81 


so that the great and inevitable all-consuming 
and devouring horror might advance unseen. 
Death is the end!” 

“No!” cried the old man, “death is not the 
end!” 

“Death is the end, the fate of all,” con¬ 
tinued Pentland, numbly beating his breast, 
“and there is no escape! We may prevent 
accident, we may guard against sickness and 
even circumvent it, but back of and beyond 
these vincible woes rises the inevitability of 
death in some form. All that lives must die: 
bird, beast, and man. Creatures run here and 
there, destinies diverge and fan out broadly, 
yet in the end all living things meet upon the 
grave, they all converge to that one single 
destination. All must come to it, wise men 
and fools, ladies of rank and harlots—” 

“But Christ—” 

“—conquerors, saints, and knaves. All of 
them face it, all bewail it—why! the literature 
of every people on earth rings with lamenta¬ 
tion over the necessity of death! I try to 
ignore it, but everywhere that I look I see life 
sickening to decay, and when I read, the 
printed page has only one phrase: death the 




82 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


end, the fate of all. The Scriptures reek with 
it; so do the classics, Seneca, Euripides, 
Tacitus. When I open more modern books, 
it’s just the same: Dante harps and harps on 
it, and so does gloomy old Milton. I try 
Hamlet and meet the ghost, if Macbeth it’s 
murder, if Lear an aging monarch tottering to 
his rendezvous with me!” 

Mr. Crawford had been gazing at him with 
pitying eye, and now he seized the opportunity 
to announce in a fatherly tone, 

“Some degree of fear is common to all of 
us, although it usually vanishes with youth. 
In your case it seems to have persisted for an 
unduly long period, but no doubt it will 
gradually blunt itself and disappear in time.” 

“Disappear in time!” rejoined Pentland 
angrily. “Are you trying to be facetious? 
Time! why it is time that lies at the very root 
of this damnable evil. Fugit irreparabile 
tempus , that’s just it! When Mother was 
alive, the years went by without my noticing 
them,—all at once she’s gone, and I find my¬ 
self stripped of youth, pushed to the verge of 
middle life, with only a fragment of time 
reserved for me,—beyond that looms death.” 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


83 


His eyes fell upon the sundial at the foot 
of the grave, 

“The sundial never stops. While you 
watch it, the shadows go on marching; when 
you ignore it, they go on just the same, just 
the same, pushing you toward the abysm,— 
the very sight of it is maddening! I hate it! 
0 God, how I hate it!” 

Even as he spoke he caught up a heavy 
stone and rushed to the sundial, striking blow 
after blow, until the brass blade had been 
beaten from its stone pedestal, and lay upon 
the ground. 

“What folly!” cried Pentland then, reeling 
on his shaking legs. “Fm losing my senses! 
If there were a God—” 

“There is a God,” Mr. Crawford broke in 
sternly, “an all-wise, loving Father who stands 
beyond our censure and our understanding, a 
mighty Creator who has formed the universe 
in accordance with His own divine plan.” 

Pentland with a snarl, 

“The universe! Bah! it has no plan, and 
if it has an author, it reflects small honor upon 
him. Lacking rhyme and reason, full of 
wasteful cruel conflict, it is a medley of all 




84 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


that is blind, stupid, banal, and disgusting. 
Such is the universe, old man, a silly product 
for which I will not revere your so-called' 
Creator. But enough of this,” he moaned, 
suddenly weak and sick. “I have no power 
to follow abstract analysis. I have no interest 
in intellectual vagaries. Your tales of Santa 
Claus and God, what good do they do me when 
fear of death is curdling my heart? I long 
for my blessed mother and she is gone. My 
blessed blessed mother, would that the present 
were only a nightmare, from which I might 
awake. Oh that I might see her at my side 
again! Oh that I might touch her hand! Oh 
that I might even as much as hear her voice!” 

“Sir!” cried Mr. Crawford, drawing his 
long thin figure slowly erect, “you shall hear 
her voice!” 


Ill 

Pentland jerked up his head to stare, 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“Please let me explain,” said Mr. Craw¬ 
ford. 

“Do so.” 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


85 


The old man bowed gravely, and in his 
florid manner said, 

“Sir, there lives, in the city of Philadelphia 
—which is the acknowledged center of medi¬ 
cine and the experimental sciences on this side 
of the Atlantic—a recent arrival from the 
laboratories of Europe, by name Mr. Richard 
Bacon. Personally I am only slightly 
acquainted with this gentleman, but through 
accredited hearsay I am quite familiar with 
his talents. I feel justified in agreeing with 
his many admirers that he is to-day the 
most illustrious representative of science in 
America. After having studied with Lavoisier 
in France and Sir Humphrey Davy in London, 
Mr. Bacon was for some time under the tute¬ 
lage of the celebrated Joseph Black of Scot¬ 
land. In due course he came to this country 
and located in Philadelphia for the purpose 
of working with the late Benjamin Rush. It 
was Richard Bacon who discovered the oxy- 
hydrogen flame. He was also the first person 
to produce good artificial graphite from char¬ 
coal. Besides giving promise of perfecting 
new means of illuminating our public build¬ 
ings, he—” 




86 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


Seeing that Pentland was on the point of 
interrupting, Mr. Crawford held up his hand 
for silence, and went on hurriedly, 

“I have mentioned all this merely to pro¬ 
duce in your mind the respect due the powers 
of this most extraordinary individual, but 
since you are impatient, I shall come to the 
point at once. Richard Bacon has invented 
an instrument which he calls the spiritscope. 
This instrument is calculated to bring the 
living of this world into communication with 
the inhabitants of the land beyond the grave.” 

Pentland drew back in mute astonishment; 
his companion went on solemnly, 

“I am an old man. I have tried to live as 
a Christian ought to live. I joined the church 
when I was thirteen, and since that time of 
holy union I have submitted myself to God’s 
will. I would not dare to try to interfere with 
the plans of my Father in Heaven. But I am 
human. Since your mother’s death this world 
has become a doleful place to me. As I drag 
myself from one day to another the only thing 
that bears me up is the hope of meeting her in 
Paradise. I came to this sacred spot troubled 
in spirit, to pray to Almighty God, seeking to 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


87 


know His will. I believe my prayer has been 
answered. I feel sure that Our Father has 
guided Richard Bacon to America for the pur¬ 
pose of perfecting the spiritscope. I am con¬ 
vinced that this is God’s means of comforting 
us. While biding our own time we are to use 
this instrument to plan that reunion with our 
loved ones which is to endure through all 
Eternity!” 

Arthur Pentland was staring into the night, 
rigid, silent, white. 

The old man stepped closer to him, 

46 Arthur—please let me call you that— 
Arthur, he has been experimenting with the 
spiritscope for several days now. By next 
Thursday he will have completed his trials. 
He has invited me to come to his laboratory 
Thursday evening, to hear the result. I am 
going to start for Philadelphia in the morn¬ 
ing. My boy, come with me! Come with me 
and hear the voice of your dear mother speak¬ 
ing to us out of that happy land to which the 
Lord of Hosts has taken her, and where she is 
awaiting us! Come, Arthur! It is in ful¬ 
fillment of God’s plan that you come with 




88 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“God’s plan,” muttered Pentland, as in a 
dream. “There is no God,—how then can 
there be a plan? And yet I must go, for the 
time has come. The time has come at last, 
and I.Iam ready.” 

IV 

They set out. 

It was a dull somber louring day, a gloomy 
day that fitted in with Arthur Pentland’s 
mood, as hour after hour he slouched in a 
corner of the stagecoach, at Mr. Crawford s 
side. Most of the opposite seat was taken up 
by a burly one who mourned because there 
were no lady passengers; he had a way with 
them—so he said—but Pentland never heard. 
He only stared out of the window, gaping to 
see the horses hurtle round a curve with 
frothy mouths and bellies mud-splashed. With 
steaming sides the beasts slowed down, pant¬ 
ing as they walked up a steep and slippery 
hill, and then, the summit reached, they broke 
into a gallop, racing down the slope and over 
a level stretch to a wayside tavern—the driver 
jerked them on their haunches and wanted to 
know where’n Hell them fresh ones was. 





THE FLESHLESS ONE 


89 


A bit of turmoil followed: a fresh team 
trotted out, men rushed to the bar for what 
they’d been waiting for, lips played with cuss 
words and gusty fun,—all at once there was 
a shout of Philadelphia! All in fer Phila¬ 
delphia! More scrambling then. Hey wait! 
Come on! Move over, you! The driver 
leaned down from his high seat to spit tobacco 
juice at the stable-boy, cracked his whip, and 
gave the trembling horses such a cut they 
danged near snapped the traces. Phila¬ 
delphia ! 

The new passengers were full of talk, but 
Pentland was indifferent to them. He never 
moved, save when the dashing coach struck 
a bog-hole and threw him into some stranger’s 
embrace. There was a wide and windy pano¬ 
rama unfolding all about him, but he never 
saw it, nor did he notice the wenches giggling 
waving squealing beside the turnpike, the 
turnpike on which he was moving east, east! 
east! steadily east, past an endless procession 
of immigrants moving west, west! west! new 
life pushing into the young west,—and Pent- 
land east. 

Mr. Crawford was trying to cheer his friend 




90 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


with a steady flow of talk. The old man 
explained the by-laws of his church, the minis¬ 
ter’s salary, the rewards for faith, the immense 
satisfaction of knowing that one is saved, the 
lesson of Job, the significance of Abraham 
and Elisha, the courage of Luke, John, Mat¬ 
thew, Daniel, Esther, Joseph and Moses. He 
spoke of the glories of Heaven, also, but see¬ 
ing that Pentland was for some reason unin¬ 
terested in all this, he returned to earth. The 
present season, he declared, was set off by 
itself, being neither winter nor spring,—how 
curious. Yes, it was a kind of interlude in the 
pageantry of Nature; a sort of dark cloud 
April was, but it certainly had a silver lining, 
or anyhow it soon would have. 

“Just look!” he cried, and tapped at the 
window. “The weather is improving every 
day! The hills are still naked, of course, but 
Nature’s pulse is quickening. The chilling 
frosts of winter are working up out of the 
ground, it’s quite apparent, don’t you think 
so? Yes, yes, the terrors of the North Wind 
are exhausted at last. It is retiring in favor 
of the milder breezes, the gentle zephyrs one 
might call them. Ah! from now on we shall 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


91 


see the wind caress the earth, not buffet it, 
wooing bud and root, and whispering of the 
bloom and wondrous flowering to come.” 

Pentland made no answer to this poetical 
flight, but silence did not discourage his com¬ 
panion: the old gentleman kept on with the 
entertainment, content if now and again he 
got a curt nod or an inarticulate grunt in 
reply, and when after a nightmare of plunging 
through mud and mire, the last day of their 
journey dawned, he redoubled his efforts to 
give Arthur Pentland some of his own high 
spirits. The coach dipped through a wood, 
swung round a hill, and Mr. Crawford gave a 
cry, pointed, 

“Look! There are the spires of the city, 
Philadelphia! We’ll soon be there.” 

Pentland did not show the slightest inter¬ 
est; he continued to languish in his seat, coat 
collar turned up against his ears, his head sunk 
upon his breast. Swiftly swiftly the horses 
dashed on, leaping under the lash of the 
impatient driver. The sun sank lower and 
lower, until the creaking straining coach threw 
before itself a long and writhing shadow, a 
monstrous precursor of their coming,—then 




92 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


with a rush and rumble and a blare of horns 
they darted through the outskirts of the city, 
slowed up to round a corner, and halted before 
a tavern. 

The travellers got out. 

“I suggest that we go to the laboratory at 
once,” said Mr. Crawford eagerly. 

“I am ready,” murmured Pentland in a 
heavy voice. 

Good. 

They set out. 

By this time the sun had set, and a chill 
twilight was spreading abroad. Pentland 
shivered as he looked about: on either hand 
were rows of houses, wrapped in shadow, save 
that an occasional kitchen window was a-gleam 
with the fire on the hearth inside, there where 
meats were turning on their spits. Tramp 
tramp tramp in silence, until Mr. Crawford 
caught sight of a lamplighter far off, making 
the rounds of the city with his lantern, leav¬ 
ing behind, at every corner he passed, a cheery 
little flame to check the oncoming gloom. 

“It is a good omen,” smiled the old man. 
“Dusk has been gathering, but is now dis¬ 
pelled, just as the shadow on our hearts is 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


93 


to be dissipated by the Light which shines out 
from Eternity.” 

Suddenly a man brushed past them and 
hurried on along the street. The stranger 
was enveloped in a long black cloak which 
concealed his outlines, but when he reached 
the next corner he paused to look back, and 
as he did so he showed himself in the light 
of the lamp above his head. 

“Why!” exclaimed Mr. Crawford, as the 
fellow whirled about and disappeared in the 
darkness, “that is Richard Bacon himself ! 
Let’s hurry. Perhaps we can overtake him 
before he reaches his lodgings.” 

He turned to Pentland with an eager smile, 
—and started back in surprise, crying, 

“Arthur! What has happened? Are you 
ill?” 

Pentland raised a hand to his temple, and 
for a moment seemed to be on the point of 
swooning, but recovered himself. He straight¬ 
ened up, muttered, 

“I am ready. I am ready, I say.” 

They went on. 

A few moments brought them across Inde¬ 
pendence Square and to the lodgings of 




94 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


Richard Bacon, the illustrious scientist. The 
windows were dark. 

“He’s not in,” said Pentland, in a voice 
resembling a moan. “Let’s go ’way.” 

“No. His laboratory is in the rear of the 
house, where, as he says, he is less likely to 
be disturbed by passers-by. He expects me. 
I’m positive he’s in.” 

So saying, he raised the knocker and gave 
it a blow. 

They were admitted by a negress. 

With a lighted candle in her hand she led 
them along a dark passageway and down a 
flight of rickety steps, and after that along 
another and a darker hall, halting, at length, 
before a heavy door of oak, bound with iron 
and studded with large nails. She tapped 
lightly. A strangely clear and vibrant voice 
wanted to know who was there. 

“Mr. Crawford and a friend.” 

Silence. 

The black woman went away. 

The callers heard a bolt shoot back. The 
door swung open, and the characteristic odors 
of a laboratory seeped out upon them. They 
stepped in. 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


95 


V 

Stepped in, to find themselves in an apart¬ 
ment of large and uncertain dimensions, the 
ceiling so low as hardly to accommodate tall 
Mr. Crawford. As for Arthur Pentland, the 
light afforded by the half dozen candles scat¬ 
tered about the place must have been too dim 
for him to see by, for in following his friend 
into the place he stumbled over first one thing 
and then another, and once he came near trip¬ 
ping over a crate of rabbits. The floor, how¬ 
ever, was a litter: a mess of boxes, tables, and 
miscellaneous utensils, including a motley 
array of test tubes, phials, crucibles, and gal¬ 
lipots. In one corner an enormous alembic 
was going about its business of distillation, 
while upon the shelves around the walls were 
bottles of herbs and nameless drugs. 

Yet that which even more forcibly attracted 
the gaze of the two friends was the man who 
stood in the center of the laboratory, an 
intense and sultry dark-haired figure seem¬ 
ingly conjured out of the gloom back of and 
beyond him. In stature he was short, in build 
extremely slender. The arms were of unusual 
length, the hands graceful and strong. He 




96 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


stood erect, save that the left shoulder was 
twisted forward,—perhaps it had once been 
broken, by a fall, or by a blow. As for the 
face, it was lean and brown like burnished 
copper; the eyes black and apparently with¬ 
out pupil; the lips firm and haughty. His 
jaw stuck out with an expression of elusive 
pugnacity, but the brow was calm, lofty, noble. 

Mr. Crawford saluted this individual with a 
deep bow, 

“Mr. Bacon, let me present a young friend 
of mine, Mr. Arthur Pentland.” 

The scientist replied in a voice in which 
there was a hint of derision, 

“Arthur Pentland of Pittsburgh.” 

A curt nod was Pentland’s only response. 
He took the chair which Bacon brought for¬ 
ward, and sat down. Mr. Crawford, on the 
contrary, drew himself up straight, his eyes 
upon the scientist, 

“Sir, have you completed your trials?” 

Bacon made a theatrical bow, 

“I have.” 

Mr. Crawford turned his eager gaze to 
where the spiritscope stood upon a table. He 
went on in a quavering voice, 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


97 


“And are you satisfied as to the result?” 

“I am.” 

“So that upon your word of honor as a 
gentleman, and upon your reputation as a 
scholar, there is no longer any doubt?” 

“No longer any doubt.” 

“Then in the name of the merciful God 
tell me, is the experiment a success?” 

With a smile the scientist turned to a cup¬ 
board and took out a bottle of wine. He 
slowly poured each of his guests a glass of 
liquor, 

“It is a success.” 

Mr. Crawford gave a cry of triumph and 
seized his wineglass. Lifting it high he cried 
out fervently, 

“The blessings of humanity upon you, sir, 
for this wonderful invention! Let us drink to 
your genius, which now enables mankind to 
communicate with the so-called dead!” 

He was bringing the glass to his lips when 
Bacon’s voice fell upon his ears with the force 
of a blow, 

“Communicate with the dead? You have 
misunderstood me!” 

Mr. Crawford lowered his wineglass with a 




98 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


trembling hand. He stared, sank into a chair, 
confused and full of stammer, 

66 What do you mean? Didn’t you say the 
experiment was a success? Didn’t you say 
that communication with the other world had 
been established?” 

Bacon fastened his dark inscrutable eyes 
upon the old man, and when he answered his 
voice was as a flame leaping up from smould¬ 
ering coals, 

“I said the experiment was a success, and 
so it is, a complete and unquestionable suc¬ 
cess, but by that I mean disproof of the pos¬ 
sibility of communicating with the dead. This 
instrument,” he continued, waving his long 
and sinuous fingers over the spiritscope, “is 
based upon the scientific principle that all life, 
even in its lowest forms, is energy. By 
methods which you would not understand 
even if I were to explain them to you, I have 
constructed this machine in such manner as 
to remain indifferent to the exertion of force 
by earthly bodies, and at the same time to 
intercept the slightest conceivable degree of 
energy which could be put forth by beings in 
another world. Were there such a world, this 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


99 


instrument would receive the delicate and 
peculiar impressions characteristic of it, and 
by means of this valvular arrangement these 
impressions would be magnified to such a 
degree as to be perceptible to human sense. 
I have given the spiritscope a thorough test, 
and the results are uniformly negative, from 
which the conclusion is inescapable that there 
is no such thing as an after-world, and that 
the dead do not live beyond the grave.” 

VI 

While the scientist was relieving himself 
of all this, Arthur Pentland listened calmly, 
apparently no more concerned than if he had 
been hearing a bit of casual news. Not so 
Mr. Crawford: he fell back in his chair, dis¬ 
mayed, swept off his feet. The glass he had 
lately held aloft tipped out of his shaking 
hand, letting the wine spill on the table and 
drip to the floor in ruddy drops, seemingly 
the blood from his very veins, for his face was 
gray like death. His flabby old lips quivered 
more and more violently, and when Bacon had 
finished, he faltered out, 

'There must be some mistake.” 




100 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“I do not make mistakes.” 

“Man possesses a soul.” 

“Man possesses no soul,” said Bacon. 
“Science dispenses with the notion, just as 
grownups dispense with the myth of Santa 
Claus.” 

Here Arthur Pentland tightened his lips. 

“Scoffer!” cried Mr. Crawford. “When 
God created man in His own image and like¬ 
ness, He placed within the human breast that 
supreme glory the soul, thereby setting us off 
from the beasts of the field, and supplying us 
with an undying intelligence to live beyond 
the transient hour of the earthly body, which 
in our mundane existence is suffered to be its 
shell!” 

This sentence having exhausted his breath 
he paused; Bacon replied suavely, 

“What you say is interesting; it is a pity 
it is not true. But intelligence does not sur¬ 
vive the body, either in man or in those lower 
animals from which you fallaciously assume 
him to be set off. It is difficult, or rather it is 
impossible, to conceive of intelligence apart 
from organization. Man lays claims to intel¬ 
ligence, and often he actually does exhibit 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


101 


some small degree of wit, but this is strictly 
dependent upon bodily states. Not only con¬ 
sciousness but every other stirring of mental 
life depends upon functions which go out 
like a flame when nourishment is cut off. The 
phenomena of intelligence correspond, ele¬ 
ment for element, to the operations of special 
parts of the brain. This fundamental propo¬ 
sition carries with it the denial of immortality. 
When the body dies, that which you are 
pleased to call the soul also perishes.” 

“But the Scriptures!” 

“Ah! the Scriptures,” rejoined Bacon. 
“The Scriptures! the Scriptures!” 

He broke into sardonic laughter. 

“Yes, the Scriptures,” pursued Mr. Craw¬ 
ford sternly. “The Holy Word of God! What 
argument can your atheism offer against 
Christianity and its divine assurances of 
eternal life?” 

The scientist put on the manner of an 
adult who is condescending to explain a situ¬ 
ation to a child. 

“The Christian evidence for immortality,” 
said he, “roots far back in human history, 
beginning with animism and related savage 




102 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


beliefs, building up from that low stage, be¬ 
coming complex and ramifying out into many 
directions, but even so recently as the days 
of the Israelites it was little more than unsup¬ 
ported speculation.” 

“Wait!” 

“The Old Testament attached no ethical 
significance to life after death, and had noth¬ 
ing to say concerning personal immortality. 
As to Jesus, there is, amid all the fragments of 
his ambiguous and figurative teaching, not 
one authenticated and specific statement to 
support the idea of immortality. Rather than 
emanating from a divine source, the Christian 
doctrine of immortality is the fabrication of 
human commentators and all too human trans¬ 
lators: it became a part of Christianity only 
several centuries after the foundation of that 
religion.” 

“I deny that!” cried Mr. Crawford pas¬ 
sionately. 

“You deny it! And who are you to bandy 
words with me? What do you know of the 
eschatology of the Christian faith? I tell you 
that your notion of immortality is a human 
invention, a subterfuge, adopted for the pur- 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


103 


pose of winning converts. Young little Chris¬ 
tianity! it would never have survived if it 
hadn’t held out to all comers the promise of 
a future life!” 

Mr. Crawford half rose from his chair. 

Slowly he sank back again.His voice was 

unexpectedly calm, 

“I am trying to control myself. This is a 
matter of the greatest importance to me. I 
admit that I am unskilled in the technicalities 
of eschatology. I am unable to refute your 
statements, but what you say seems to me 
plainly false. The doctrine of immortality of 
human rather than of divine origin ? A mortal 
fabrication ? An invention ? How is it, then, 
that the belief in eternal life is found in all 
ages, in all countries, and among all manner 
of people, whether cultivated or barbarous? 
Why the universality of this invention, as you 
name it?” 

“I can answer your question in a very few 
words,” replied Bacon easily. “The doctrine 
of immortality has been invented—in part 
unconsciously, in part by clear intent—for 
the reason that the prospect of death is too 
shocking for the mind of man to bear. Death! 






104 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


voila the king of horrors, the terror infallible, 
inescapable and paralyzing, gruesome beyond 
description, the antagonist who is unseen yet 
is ever present, oppressive and implacable foe 
who turns the sundial into an instrument of 
torture, who—” 

“Ha ha ha ha ha!” came suddenly from 
Pentland. 

“—forces puny man to avert his gaze while 
he spins the mythy veil of sweet eternal life, 
a cloak to hide from view what is undeniably 
his one and only destination,—the grave.” 

“That is not true!” protested Mr. Crawford 
hotly. “Not the grave, but Heaven is man¬ 
kind’s destination, if only we follow Christ. 
The voice of Truth tells me that, and further¬ 
more—” 

“Illusion tells you that,” sneered the sci¬ 
entist. “Illusion clever and full of comfort, 
no doubt, no doubt, illusion packed tight with 
verisimilitude, very true, but illusion for all 
of that. 0 man! not by Truth but by decoy 
and deceit and falseness do you guide your 
life. Very well, eschew the fact and take 
refuge in evasion, for now I name your cen¬ 
tral weakness: feeling and perception in 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


105 


advance of the power to seize and attain, yes! 
and more: feeling and perception beyond the 
capacity even to contemplate with calm.” 

He transfixed Mr. Crawford with his black 
hard eye, and dropped his voice to a scarcely 
audible murmur, 

“Death the end, the fate of all! Be frank 
with yourself, and you will have to admit that 
in the hope of immortality you are only breed¬ 
ing up an illusion. As for your young friend 
here—ah! Mr. Arthur Pentland’s face is 
changing. It is a face that artists might call 
strong, but see it shake! There is a lurking 
horror in his eyes, his cloudy troubled eyes, 
—how curious. He struggles to keep back 
what he can’t keep back, aha! he knows, even 
if you do not, that the source and single source 
of the notion of eternal life is Fear!” 

“Just a moment!” put in Mr. Crawford. 
“What about Martin Luther? There was a 
man without fear. He hurled inkpots at the 
very Devil. And he accepted the doctrine of 
immortality!” 

“You are poorly read. Luther Honest 
scorned the idea as part and parcel of the froth 
of Rome. It was Luther Expedient who be- 




106 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


came reconciled to it,—as a matter of expedi¬ 
ency. He had to make his little Reformation 
a success.” 

Mr. Crawford was contemptuous, 

“And I suppose it is because of religious 
expediency that so many atheistic philosophers 
have accepted immortality!” 

“Expediency is but a glove,” retorted 
Bacon, “put to grip by many different hidden 
hands, of which religion is only one. The 
philosopher Kant will illustrate my point. He 
took up and wore this glove I’ve called expe¬ 
diency. Believing that without hope of being 
able to become perfect, man could not strive 
for moral perfection with all his might, Kant 
made the notion of immortality an indispen¬ 
sable postulate of the practical reason, though, 
as he told me himself, he was heartily ashamed 
of such a pretense. 0 Immanuel! Imman¬ 
uel!” 

“And he did rightly,” maintained Mr. 
Crawford, “for there is in man an unerring 
instinct—” 

“To evade the truth when it attacks our 
vanity and our peace of mind. The lady you 
loved has gone to dust.” 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


107 


“Blasphemer!” cried Mr. Crawford in a 
terrible voice. “She lives, and in a land of 
such Ineffable Glory as to make this world 
the very seat of pain and woe.” 

“Ha ha ha ha ha! Then why! oh why do 
you linger here? You prate of Heaven, but 
I’ll wager that you keep out of draughts! Oh 
these who rave of swooning bliss up yonder, 
how they cling to life here on earth! Secret 
mind knows the truth, but tongue fibs. Were 
it otherwise, why such as you, bereaved one, 
would gladly depart this hideous life and 
scramble up to where the adorable soul has 
gone before,—passed on, one says with gentle 
smiles and eyes cast upward!” 

He paused, for Mr. Crawford had risen to 
his feet with an air of finality, his face white 
as marble, his voice broken and hoarse, 

“Mr. Bacon, the discussion is at an end. 
Further words would avail nothing. Your 
arguments are of doubtful validity, your gen¬ 
eralizations too sweeping, your mockeries in¬ 
tolerable. I believe in the authority of the 
inspired Word of God, and hence in immor¬ 
tality. I would believe in it were you to 
marshal ten thousand times the glib arguments 




108 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


with which you have buttressed your 
heresies.” 

He drew a pistol from his pocket. 

“Do not be alarmed,” he went on. “I am 
about to take my own life, not yours. I have 
prepared for this contingency. I still believe 
that the spiritscope is capable of being ma¬ 
nipulated by beings in the other world. But 
after what you have said this evening, I am 
convinced that your atheistic prejudices have 
caused you, unwittingly perhaps, to give the 
machine an imperfect trial. I propose to 
demonstrate the existence of life beyond the 
grave. Have I your word of honor that this 
instrument is ready for use?” 

“You have,” said Bacon calmly. “The 
arrangement of dial and sensitized paper 
which you have already examined will register 
your most attenuated signal, should you be 
kind enough to let us know what Heaven is 
like.” 

Mr. Crawford gripped the pistol till his 
knuckles showed white, 

“One word more. Up until to-night your 
attitude toward me was most friendly; this 
evening you have been frankly hostile. May 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


109 


I ask the reason for this hatred? To my 
knowledge I have never injured you in any 
way.” 

“You are nothing to me personally,” 
answered the scientist, in a cutting voice. 
“Hatred! I do not hate you, but I do loathe 
that for which you stand, theology! To me 
you are a symbol of tradition, of reason in 
abeyance and moral platitude held high, of 
hackneyed faith and outgrown creed, a sym¬ 
bol of that vain silly religion which is a skin 
ready to be shed, and yet clings on, clogging 
the march toward Truth. I have worsted you 
in argument, and now there stands my spirit- 
scope, ready to demolish your last claims,— 
but perhaps you have forgotten to load your 
pistol?” 

Mr. Crawford bowed coldly, 

“I accept your challenge. I count myself 
fortunate to have this opportunity to oppose 
the dogma of the arrogant and godless science 
which you represent. May the Lord use this 
machine to judge between us.” 

He turned to Pentland, 

“Good-bye, Arthur, until we meet in a 
happier world, in that Land of Glory where 




110 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


there shall be no more tears, neither sorrow 
nor suffering. Be faithful and you will receive 
the crown of Love that fadeth not away. I 
will signal to you by means of the spiritscope, 
and as I promised, you shall also have a mes¬ 
sage from your dear mother. Good-bye, and 
may the blessing of Our Lord Jesus Christ 
rest upon you forever and ever.” 

He fixed his eyes upon the spiritscope, 
raised the pistol to his temple, and pressed the 
trigger. 

VII 

A thunder of sound shook the room—sud¬ 
den smoke puffed out, a stinking cloud through 
which Mr. Crawford clawed at the table, and 
slid gently to the floor. 

For one long shuddering moment Arthur 
Pentland kept his straining eyes upon the 
body, then throwing back his head he burst 
into hysterical laughter, wild paroxysms 
which crowded at the words he gasped out, 

“Save him! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! 
Save him!” 

The scientist drew a snuffbox from the cuff 
of his sleeve, murmuring gravely, 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


111 


“Impossible.” 

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” 

Bacon was observing the dying man with 
curiosity. 

“Death,” said he, “is always an interest¬ 
ing phenomenon, and because of his greater 
complexity of structure, this is particularly 
true of the animal we call man. However—” 

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” 

“—it is an error to distinguish death in 
man from death in other creatures, for if you 
are remarking the illustration which Mr. 
Crawford is affording us, you must admit that 
human beings perish much as do the beasts 
of the field. The great—” 

“Hee hee hee hee! Heehee! Hee!” 

66 —majority of people die as animals die, 
without giving a sign one way or the other, a 
hint, I may say, of their return to the level of 
inanimate matter. Ah, I greatly fear it 
is—” 

“Hee hee!” 

“—only the transitory effluvium of an ego¬ 
tistical brain which gives man his moment’s 
illusion of a higher destiny.” 

Laughter had gone away from Arthur Pent- 




112 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


land, leaving him weak and faint, a quivering 
thing that stared and stared at the quivering 
thing upon the floor. 

“Save him,” he moaned. 

“He is dead,” said Bacon. 

Saying this, he flung a sheet over the body 
and sat down at the table, continuing with a 
wry smile, 

“My dear sir, why regard so fixedly the 
earthly shell he has left behind? Observe, 
instead, I beg you, the spiritscope on the table 
here between us. By means of this machine, 
he’ll shortly tell us, no doubt, no doubt, just 
how he arrived upon the Delectable Mountain, 
and how the angels furnished him with harp 
and wings and fig leaf, and gauze trousers, too, 
for modesty is a Christian virtue! Bah!” he 
cried, with sudden spleen, “the dial you are 
watching is—” 

“Wait!” muttered Pentland hoarsely, 
“wait!” 

“Ah yes,” smiled the scientist, taking 
another pinch of snuff. “Let us wait. By 
all means, yes. We must have faith, else 
fadeless Love will never never come down 
upon us.” 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


113 


With curling lips he leaned back in his 
chair, while Pentland riveted his eyes upon the 
dial of the spiritscope. In this manner a half 
hour passed, the scientist now and then in¬ 
quiring, with unveiled sarcasm, if the machine 
had registered, and Pentland replying, in a 
low and halting voice, that it had not. 

“Come,” cried Bacon at length, “this is a 
sleeveless task, I assure you.” 

“Wait!” 

“And for what? I tell you that by that one 
pistol shot, by that one piece of lead pro¬ 
jected at high velocity against his temporal 
bone, he destroyed—so far as he is concerned 
—the entire universe, exchanging reality for 
nothingness. Certa amittimus , dum incerta 
petimus , as old Plautus would put it.” 

“Mr. Crawford died to realize an ideal,” 
muttered Pentland, struggling to keep his 
teeth from chattering. 

“But did not realize it. Entre nous , the 
fellow was a dolt not to know that it is only 
by living that man can realize his ideals. Once 
a sentient organism, he is now nothing but 
meat. His body is cooling. Presently livid 
spots will appear upon the skin. The car- 




114 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


cass will emit odorous gases as invitation to 
a horde of insects—” 

“In mercy’s name, stop!” cried Pentland. 
“I can’t bear it.” 

Even as he spoke he sprang to his feet 
and rushed from the room,—and halted in 
confusion, for the door through which he had 
just fled was not the door through which he 
had entered the laboratory in company with 
Mr. Crawford. The apartment in which he 
now found himself was dark, save for a 
brazier of coals which gave out a red light 
strongly resembling an eye gleaming from 
the night. What appeared to be a pair of 
brass scales scintillated in the light thus 
afforded, but beyond this he could distinguish 
nothing. 

“This is my private laboratory,” said Bacon, 
entering with a candle. “I do my preliminary 
work in the chamber you have already seen, 
and perform my more vital experiments here. 
May I observe that you were free to go into 
the street? You came into this room of your 
own accord. But to continue, the corpse—” 

“Be still!” cried Pentland, stumbling into 
a chair. “Are you a monster that you torture 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


115 


me in this fashion ? The corpse! Great God, 
I shall be with it soon enough.” 

“Are you thinking of following your 
friend’s example?” inquired the scientist, as 
he lit another candle. 

“Hush.hush.” 

“Or have you a fatal malady?” 

“None,” groaned Pentland, burying his 
face in his hands, “none, except the greatest 
of all maladies, terror of that decay which is 
momently pushing me nearer and nearer the 
grave.” 

A smile from Bacon, 

“Your rhetoric is excellent, but your knowl¬ 
edge of somatic states is sadly deficient. Pro¬ 
vided that the organs remain sound and health 
is safeguarded, science knows of no reason 
why the body should ever decay or wear out. 
It is a self-renewing machine. Old age is not 
inevitable.” 

“What!” 

“Senectus ipsa est morbus. In plain 
speech, old age is a disease.” 

“Aye, but a disease no mortal physician can 
heal!” 

“Old age is a dagger, science is a long 





116 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


sword. But have another glass of that brandy. 
It will clarify your thought.” 

Pentland pushed back the decanter angrily, 
“See here, it is sorry sport to mock at one 
who is already prostrated. Fear has clutched 
me since I came into this damnable world! 
Now you cross my path with talk of what your 
science is and what it can do! You boast of 
skill and erudition, but let me say this, if 
there’s anything to you besides chatter and 
brag, study out a way to circumvent old age 
and death. Yes, there’s a problem for you! 
Effect a charm against the Fleshless One!” 

“That,” said Bacon, slowly and clearly, 
“that, sir, is precisely what I have done!” 
Pentland stared 


VIII 

and stared. 

“I am a man of parts,” continued Richard 
Bacon, Esquire, and struck an attitude. “Such 
mechanical arrangements as the spiritscope 
exhaust neither my interests nor my capa¬ 
bilities. Not physics alone, nor chemistry of 
itself, but rather the entire range of science, 
—behold my proper field.” 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


117 


Pentland’s mouth had been open for some 
little time, but not a word came out of it. 

“The possibilities of science are endless,” 
declared the learned man. “Observe the ves¬ 
sel upon your right hand. It contains living 
beings brought into existence by me.” 

Pentland recoiled. 

“It contains sea urchins,” was the con¬ 
temptuous explanation. “No doubt you 
thought it contained human young. The 
latter can be created by every lout who can 
find a wall to back his slut against; the cre¬ 
ation of sea urchins is much more difficult, I 
assure you. And yet I have done it. Having 
secured a number of unfertilized eggs I treated 
them, not with spermatozoa, but with a solu¬ 
tion of butyric acid, whereupon they developed 
into larvae.” 

“I am not interested in this sort of thing,” 
interrupted Pentland. 

In that instant Richard Bacon flashed into 
a madman: his features twisted to a snarl— 
he showed his teeth—his eyes gleamed with 
venom,—then as if a mask had come back 
upon him, his face was suddenly quiet, cold, 
stolid. 




118 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Quite true,” he muttered thickly. “Quite 
true that you’re not interested in creating life. 
You care nothing for the generation of that 
which may go out from you, your sole concern 
being that which may come in to you, to pre¬ 
serve your own dear precious flame. Very 
apparently so! Well, if such be your humour, 
let us turn to the perpetuation of life.” 

Opening an ice-chest, he took out a small 
glass vessel in which a bit of flesh was sus¬ 
pended in liquid. This he held up, 

“Do you observe that the flesh vibrates, 
contracts, expands, pulses?” 

“Yes,” whispered Pentland. “It vibrates, 

contracts, expands, pulses.like a 

heart!” 

“That is precisely what it is,—the heart of 
a chicken which for many months I have kept 
alive by scientific immersion in a plasma of 
blood serum. In cold storage it will live 
indefinitely. You perceive, thus, that unend¬ 
ing life upon the earth is possible even for the 
chicken-hearted!” 

“But—” 

“Ah!” exclaimed Bacon, carefully replac¬ 
ing the vessel in its icy retreat, “permit me to 





THE FLESHLESS ONE 


119 


anticipate you. You are about to protest that 
there is a far-flung gulf between a chicken and 
a human being. Physiologically, yes. True, 
also, that the greater problem lies in the per¬ 
petuation of life in so complex an organism 
as man. According to the theory of—but 
why should I deliver a lecture on matters 
beyond your understanding? Nutrition! 
metabolism! catalysis! what are these to you ? 
Words, nothing more.” 

He fell to muttering intelligibly, pacing 
to and fro on noiseless feet, his fingers in his 
hair—jerked round to face Pentland—hur¬ 
ried on in a confidential tone, 

“In Holland there’s a certain name-him-not 

who dreams and speculates.oh yes! 

the secret of life is in the glands—they make 
up and let loose into the blood what may be 
called liquid chemicals to invigorate the 
organs. Chut to all who call him great! I 
call him a fool, a blind man home from seeing 
the elephant, a visitor returning to his hovel 
with but a portion of the larger grander whole 
which is the truth. What he’s got is only a 
lame halt and crippled one-eyed notion, yet 
he hawks it about for All, for like mankind in 





120 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


general, his mind’s too small to grasp the 
vaster stretch from Alpha to Omega! Not 
science but a plot of ground is what he is 
meant to fertilize.” 

He stepped back for an ornate flourish to¬ 
ward a chart of the human body on the wall, 

“The glands, I say, control and motivate 
no more than fragments of that illusive and 
majestic whole which, since it is in itself the 
all-pervasive government, I call the basic 
principle. The life of the organism is a cor¬ 
related sequence of phenomena, and it’s the 
correlation that is important, and not sub¬ 
sidiary and isolated facts. In every detail’s 
structure there is made manifest the urge of 
the organism regarded as a unit,—yet till I, 
Richard Bacon, came upon the scene, there 
was no tracing the links connecting, ramify¬ 
ing out from even one of these details. See in 
me the pathfinder!’plough in a ploughed yet 
unploughed field! I with my deft hand felt 
down through the maze of all these complex 
phenomena to where a pulse was throbbing, at 
first without meaning, but later showing clear 
as light just how response emerges and flows 
reciprocally between the unit and the whole. 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


121 


and thus builds and builds toward the har¬ 
monious result. All this is my discovery, 
brought to precipitation by sweat and mid¬ 
night pondering in the test tube of my brain, 
enabling me to see the forest and the single 
trees all in proportion. I’ve solved the riddle 
of the universe!” 

With a leer for Pentland he seized a glass 
of brandy and lifted it on high, crying, 

“A toast! A toast to Richard Bacon, most 
illustrious of men, for through my wondrous 
science I have grasped the secret of perpetual 
life! Impelled by inordinate egotism and 
vanity, spurred on by fear of death, oho! 
prodded by curiosity and imagination, man¬ 
kind has sought this golden key since earliest 
time! Philosophers, psst! priests, kings, 
scholars and poets! mongrel dabsters and 
mumbling seers! all these and many more 
have grappled with the problem, spewing 
forth as their joint product such a mess of 
potions, powders, and elixirs, and such a mad 
array of spells and charms and incantations as 
Hell itself does not contain! Tscheeeeee! All 
this, ha ha ha ha ha! and more, too, for the 
sniffling rabble must have something to feed 




122 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


and gorge upon, so up out of fancy they’ve 
builded their tales of heated romance, bab¬ 
bling of Ahasuerus, Wandering Jew, Sleeping 
Beauty and Wild Huntsman, Barbarossa! 
Risen Christ and the Flying Dutchman, fic¬ 
titious deathless one, among them only one 
who’s really insured against decay, and that is 
I, myself, I, Richard Bacon! I with my secret 
of eternal life on earth!” 

“But if you really have this marvelous 
secret,” cried Pentland, “how is it that human¬ 
ity has not heard of it?” 

“Humanity!” snarled the scientist. “Let 
swine share my pearl, to paraphrase your pale 
one of Bethlehem! I detest humanity as much 
as you do.” 

“I?” 

“You! Leave off pretense—those pale 
pale eyes are only panes of glass to me! I 
see deep down behind them, see how you have 
a spite against humanity, and from a lower 
motive than my own. I represent the search 
for Truth, but you, why you’re merely a clot 
of superciliousness, stinking in your own 
exclusive corner. Well-born aristocrat, 
suckled in a bed, sweet delicate soul! You 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


123 


hold yourself aloof, you dilettant, effete in¬ 
sipid whining coward! Hypocrite, you are as 
far from the heart of man as I am, hence do 
not preach! Hold your tongue, Mr. Pismire, 
and look upon me with proper respect! Put 
reverence in your gaze, for I am the son of 
Roger Bacon!” 

The unflattering terms in this tirade had 
made Arthur Pentland flush hotly, but its 
denouement was so startling, and moreover 
was tossed off in such melodramatic style, that 
he leaned back in his chair in bewilderment; 
and when the scientist added to the absurdity 
of the situation by striking the pose affected 
by the tragedians of the day, Pentland burst 
into sarcastic laughter, 

“My dear great man, allow me to point out 
that Roger Bacon lived in the thirteenth cen¬ 
tury, and that this is the nineteenth!” 

“Thank you for the information,” replied 
the scientist coolly, “and since this apparently 
is the occasion for an exchange of knowledge, 
I may add that Roger Bacon was a worker in 
the occult, a seer, an experimenter in alchemy 
and optics. He sought the philosopher’s 
stone, and concocted what he called the elixir 




124 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


of life, using it but sparingly, however, be¬ 
cause of popular prejudice. The people of 
that day were well-nigh as bigoted as at 
present.” 

6 ‘Impossible that such an elixir—” 

“Roger Bacon indulged in the practice of 
planting his seed in various types of female 
soil, and afterward seizing upon the young 
shoots for purposes of experimentation. He 
served a certain lady of noble blood, who later 
produced me as fruit. Despite the protests 
of my mother, who in due season died of what 
is romantically known as a broken heart, my 
father came secretly to France and took pos¬ 
session of my body. He took me back across 
the Channel, to experiment on me. I grew 
to manhood in his laboratory, his natural 
son.” 

Taking a candle from the table he stepped 
to the wall, and placed himself beside an oil 
painting hanging there, 

“The portrait is of Roger Bacon. The light 
is rather dim, but you can see, no doubt, the 
unmistakable resemblance between us.” 

“But,” stammered Pentland, as the sci¬ 
entist returned the candle to the table, “how 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


125 


came it that he died, if he possessed the elixir 
of life?” 

Richard Bacon shrugged his crippled shoul¬ 
der, and replied in icy tones, 

“That is a matter into which you had best 
not inquire. Suffice to say he originated the 
method. It came into my possession at his 
untimely death. Bah! I owe him nothing. 
His elixir was a faulty thing, able to increase 
the span of life a mere thirty or forty years. 
He was but a point in the circle of a particular 
line of achievement; it is I, who after years 
of laborious research and experiment, have 
perfected the idea, and in so doing have made 
myself the summatioti of the circle.” 

“But—” 

“How old do I seem to you?” 

“Why—why—perhaps forty.” 

“I am aged five hundred and sixty-seven 
years. On the fourth of June next,” he added 
with a twisted smile. 


“But.if you had really been 

rejuvenated.Ridiculous! you are no 


youth!” Pentland ended suddenly. 

“Youth!” cried Bacon, with a gesture of 
contempt. “Rejuvenation! What are you 






126 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


chattering about? Aha! I know—yes—I’ve 
heard such talk many times before, for with a 
rare exception all who hunger for more life 
want back their youth! They crave the stage 
of folly and indulgence, sensual appetite, 
pleasure, license with the flesh. Oh what a 
noble aim for noble man! What good justice 
that he’s never stumbled on his fountain of 
eternal youth, since progress must always lean 
on those who can and will outgrow their swad¬ 
dling clothes—a nutty thought for you, my 
friend! Rejuvenation! Can the oak return 
to the acorn? Not it, nor can mankind cast 
off age and snatch up youth, there to begin 
again durch die Welt zu rennen , jed’ Geliist 
bei den Haaren zu ergreifen! The thing’s 
not possible, nor ought it to be. All that 
science can do is to maintain a regulative bal¬ 
ance, perpetuating the organism in that stable 
harmony which exists at the time of inter¬ 
ference, as flowers put into cages of blown 
glass endure just as they are, and of a cer¬ 
tainty do not return to the bud.” 

He emptied his glass of liquor and got to 
his feet, walking somewhat unsteadily to the 
farther end of the room. In a moment he 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


127 


returned, holding in his hand an instrument 
about six inches in length. He showed it 
to Pentland with suppressed excitement, 

“Well, see it, then! Charged at its base 
with vital fluid, this instrument has the power 
to ejaculate into the blood—what? Ha! name 
it not, but call it that which can make the 
human organism live with new life, thus sav¬ 
ing itself from extinction, cheat worm and 
slug.” 

Pentland shuddered, whereupon the sci¬ 
entist bent over him with a wild and gloating 
laugh, 

“You tremble, but why not face what must 
be faced ? Death the end, the fate of all save 
Richard Bacon, death from which there is no 
escape. Round go the shadows of the sundial, 
pushing you nearer and nearer the abysm,— 
you cannot halt them. You may prevent acci¬ 
dent, you may guard against sickness and even 
circumvent it, but back of and beyond these 
vincible woes rises the inevitability of death 
in some form,—how escape? How will you, 
eh? Ha ha ha! It’s dark and brown and 
heavy, that odor which foretells the coming 
of the Fleshless One! Time will fly, and he 




128 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


will take you in his embrace, into the smother¬ 
ing earth, holding you there tight and fast, 
while from all directions the hordes and count¬ 
less myriads of maggots come crawling, inch¬ 
ing up, tunneling the coffin to converge upon 
the feast, swarming up over the putrid mess, 
each ambitious to be the first within those 
starting sockets, for mankind’s highest glory, 
his brain, is what the worms love best of all, 
the gray sweet juicy stuff!” 

“In Christ’s name, no more!” gasped Pent- 
land, cringing in his chair. 

“No more!” cried Bacon then, a dark 
malignity flashing out upon his writhing insane 
face. “No more to live, such is the prospect 
that you face, and all others, too,—all men 
are transient flitting bits of mist except the 
Great Bacon! Aha! I read your eyes—I see 
your deep desire—you’d like to, would you?” 

He had risen, and now Pentland, too, got 
slowly to his feet, clinging to the table for 
support, unable to speak, only staring in his 
fascination, staring to the eyes of Richard 
Bacon. 

“You want it!” jeered the scientist. “I 
scourge you with my tongue, and yet you lap 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


129 


it up, and give back no answer, no reproach, 
dear, dear! You fix upon a single theme, 
perpetual life at any cost, thinking thus to 
shut out fear, hack off the burdens of the flesh, 
and rid yourself of all that aching horror which 
hints at death. You’d like benignity and calm, 
a cloud of bliss on which to lounge and fashion 
out a couplet celebrating sweet pretty little 
happiness! Bliss is what you seek, but hear 
from me that life has little bliss. Life is strug¬ 
gle and labor, turmoil, fermenting change and 
give and take, a dark and tenebrous road with 
pain always and forever coming up behind, to 
prod the farer on his way, and to unending 
search. Search and test, experiment, that’s 
life!” 

Pentland stepped back a pace, but the 
scientist came pressing close to him, crying in 
a mad impassioned voice, 

“Experiment, that’s life! The world is but 
a cell, and life a reaction! This vital fluid I 
meant for my own blood—I said I used it on 
myself—I said what I did—as to did what 
I said, untangle that, and hear before you’re 
through, that every single living body is dif¬ 
ferent from all others in its chemistry; there- 




130 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


fore what man can say what this potent stuff 
would do in the veins of some one not Bacon ? 
The unforeseen and unexpected would result, 
no doubt, no doubt. The notion is intriguing, 
for though I despise humanity, the chemistry 
of life is my perennial interest. Bacon and 
acid make a sea urchin—did you hear that 
chicken’s heartbeat? Pardon me if I press 
closer still,—you must not fail to hear that I 
am an experimenter, on slime out of the ocean, 
chickens, beasts, and even great humanity!” 

Pentland was working his lips in a frantic 
effort to speak, but no sound came forth; only 
the scientist was to be heard, 

“I come closer to you, closer. And so you 
wish for life? How curious! But is it death 
you fear, or is it life you fear? Full easily 
they change places, dissolve one into the other, 
yes! they are the same! You make no answer 
—how rude! Passivity explains it—it’s 
creeping over you—you yield with trembling 
as I push you back, my instrument in hand. 
You tremble as a virgin does at being loaded 
up with fruit, but I’ll say this, no love is ani¬ 
mating me. The prod in me is a fierce passion 
of a sort unknown to you, you worm! that and 




THE FLESHLESS ONE 


131 


mere chance, proximity. I turn the venom of 
my reeling pounding brain to words, listen! 
If a birth comes out of this, there’ll be a long 
gestation, ha ha ha ha! Before delivery of 
new life, there’ll come upon you dismay and 
wretchedness, loathing and nausea, morning 
sickness evening faintness, disintegration of 
your flaccid soul—and all the while your body 
marking time, that complexities may be 
resolved to units, returning thence to Nought 
that hidden life may then build up, and at 
that point begins the sickish swoon that ante¬ 
dates your consciousness, and there begins the 
greatest pain and greatest darkness, for birth 
is release! and dawn is that which follows 
night. 0 timid, involuted man so chaste, free 
from the desire to make new life, be filled 
yourself with an immortal germ!” 

Pentland had stepped back and back until 
he stood pressed against the wall, then with 
a mighty effort he found his tongue, 

“Great Heaven, what fantasy is this? what 
folly? You’re mad! a lunatic! Who are 
you? In whose name do you touch me? My 
senses reel until I see no longer Richard 
Bacon, but one of whom he’s but a finger in 




132 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 

manipulation. I see a stranger who is known 
to me, a stalwart and broad-shouldered man, 
grand of aspect, terrible! Blond in the face, 
and ruddy,—out of my childhood’s dreaming 
comes this frightening, yet reassuring—Who 
are you? Declare yourself, you great Un¬ 
known. 0 God, I can’t resist. I cannot think, 
and yet I do not seem to care. Yes! life is 
sweet, and if you have it, give it to me! Fill 
me with it, that I may truly live. Perhaps we 
sin, but if we do, oh how glorious and ecstatic 
such a sin! Ah! you hurt me! I feel exqui¬ 
site pain, delightful, eager, swooning pain! 
Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h!” 




Confusion Pierced By 
Sudden Comfort 










I 


.a voice, a far-away and distant 

voice, insistent, full of promise, calling a 
refrain over and over again,—and Pentland 
opened his eyes. Raising himself up on an 
elbow he listened, and all the time the voice 

came nearer.at length its confusion 

of sound burst into words, 

“Sweep oh! I sweep ye clear oh! Sweep! 
Sweep oh!” 

The listener scowled and lay back on his 
pillows—it was only one of those ragged and 
sooty-faced chimney sweeps who used to be 
seen drifting about the streets of Philadelphia 
early in the morning. Lay back on his pillows 
and was dozing off again when a step sounded 
outside the door, 

“Anything you’d like, sir?” 

Pentland started up in bed, 

“No. I have everything I need.” 

In fact he had more than he needed, for 
sitting up had disturbed his internal arrange¬ 
ments; the footsteps had hardly begun to 
135 




136 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


retreat when he sprang out of bed and dashed 
across the room to the slop jar, where he 
indulged in a hearty vomit. 

The chimney sweep was coming back, 
shouting out his willingness to purge flue and 
funnel of all obstructions, so that the flame 
would burn brightly and as never before, burn 
strong and with clear undimmed vigor. 
Sweep! Sweep ye oh! Clean and bright, 
like new! Sweep! 

It was a rather musical refrain, but it 
annoyed Pentland; he threw up the window 
and suggested that the chimney sweep shut 
up and be off, and right now at that. The 
boy put his thumb to his nose and strolled on: 
Sweep oh! I sweep ye clear oh! Sweep! 
Sweep oh! Pentland glared him out of sight, 
and then made his toilet and went down stairs, 
—the place was a tavern. 

Taverns have hosts, in this case one purple- 
red in the face and generous at the waist. 
Wiping his hands on his apron he hurried 
up: he wanted to know if the young gentleman 
had slept well, was desolated that he hadn’t, 
but then—oh happy thought—all the ills of 
night can be cured by a hearty breakfast. 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


137 


What was the young gentleman’s pleasure? 
The young gentleman replied with an order 
for a cold pigeon and a glass of bitters, and 
having put this away, he reached for his hat. 

The morning was fine, so that in spite of the 
early hour, the street was thronged with life. 
Along the middle of the thoroughfare carts 
and heavier vehicles went lurching with their 
burdens, while on the sidewalks teemed a 
motley crowd: tradespeople, niggers, sailors, 
factory workers, loafers, school children, 
whores, merchants, errand boys, clerks, beg¬ 
gars, ministers of the gospel. Along came a 
person with white hands and expensive 
clothes; Pentland stopped him to ask, 

“I beg your pardon, but can you direct me 
to the residence of Mr. Crawford?” 

“Mr. Crawford? Why, he has been dead 
for two weeks!” 

“Dead?” 

“Yes. He took his own life. It seems that 
he fell into a fit of despondency while visiting 
his friend Richard Bacon, the illustrious 
scientist.” 

Pentland’s jaw dropped, his eyes widened, 
his cheeks paled, in short he seemed amazed, 




138 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


or even astonished,—but the gentleman was 
staring at him inquisitively: he murmured his 
thanks and walked on, going in a daze, his 
legs so full of tremblings that they had hard 
work to take him across Independence Square 
and to the lodgings of the man of science. 
When at last he stood before the door, how¬ 
ever, he grew calm. Crack! went the knocker. 

The door was opened by a black woman. 

Was her master in? 

He was out of the city. 

When would he return? 

The servant silently closed the door in his 
face. 

He turned away, walking numbly, absently, 
rambling along the street with head bowed in 
thought. Presently he found himself near a 
clot of people gathered before a broadsheet, 
a placard giving the results of a recent lot¬ 
tery. He looked up to see the face of Richard 
Bacon leering at him from the crowd. With 
an appropriate cry he sprang forward, elbow¬ 
ing his way here and there and back and forth 
and round about: no trace of the scientist. 

Toward noon he paid another visit to the 
lodgings of Mr. Bacon, and gave the knocker 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


139 


what may well have been the most violent 
blow it had ever sustained. He heard foot¬ 
steps within, but the door did not open. Again 
he seized the unfortunate knocker, when his 
glance chanced to light upon the wall just 
to the right of the door: some one was stead¬ 
fastly regarding him through a small hole. 
For a rigid instant he gaped and stared, and 
then he turned and went away,—there’d been 
something not altogether friendly in the dark 
intensity of that ambushed eye. 

A few quick steps took him out of sight 
of Bacon’s lodgings, but though he left the 
place farther and farther behind he still 
pressed ahead as if he were a fugitive from 
some sinister pursuer. He turned a corner and 
another, paused at a pump to wet his feverish 
lips, and hurried on. Up an alley, across a 
vacant plot, and to the outskirts of the city, 
and there he paused to look back, his face 
troubled with confusion, fear and anger, vague 
apprehension. One look, and again he has¬ 
tened on, toward the open country. 

Pentland fleeing Philadelphia! walking 
restlessly, hesitating, glancing back, going on, 
leaving the city for what is sometimes called 




140 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


Nature,—but he was indifferent to her swell¬ 
ing glory. He never heard the birds, nor saw 
the new green that was brightening the tawni¬ 
ness of last year’s sod, he never felt the won¬ 
der of the day, that joyous pleasant first of 
the month of May; he felt the sun, however, 
and now that the city was over the hill and 
out of sight he slowed up a little, stopped, 
sank down along the road to rest. 

Laughter. 


II 

Laughter from a troop of young men and 
girls, tripping along the highway, set on the 
season’s fun, and when they saw a little copse 
not far off the road they all ran that way, 
chattering and shouting until the grove echoed 
with their voices. One youth produced a hand 
axe, and this he brandished in most formidable 
style, while the others clapped their hands and 
darted off to search for what they were not 
long in finding. 

It was a slender birch tree, supple, young, 
and fresh. Life ran in it clear and strong, 
but the crashing axe sent it to the ground, and 
eager hands seized the quivering thing and 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


141 


dragged it to an open space. The boys 
stripped off its branches and turned it over 
to the girls, who tied colored ribbons to its 
top, and then the pole was erected by two 
lusty males; meanwhile the others were hunt¬ 
ing for evergreen boughs. 

“Oh say! there’re all kinds of Quaker flow¬ 
ers over here!” 

Run! girls, and they ran and began to pick 
as fast as they could. One of them protested 
at being outdone by her friends, whereupon a 
girl in a soft wine-colored frock put her own 
bouquet behind a fallen log to keep it safe, 
and went to help her. In a little while they 
were all provided with nosegays, save she of 
the helping hand. Unable to find the flowers 
she had put aside, she fell to searching all 
about. Well! where did I put them? 

The others had returned to the Maypole; 
they began to cry impatiently, 

“Hurry! Hurry! If you don’t, we’ll start 
without you!” 

Thus threatened, she left off searching and 
hurried back to them. She snatched up a 
ribbon, and so did everyone else, and they all 
began to dance about the Maypole, skipping 




142 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


on the grass and humming until as if by con¬ 
cert they broke into song, 

“0 let us skip and sing and play! 

Be merry and joyful , please do, 1 pray! 
For though cuckoo sings in April 
And cuckoo sings in May , 

And sings in June the cuckoo , 

He in July flies away!” 

This old English air proving a general 
favorite, they were repeating it for the third 
time when a shout made them look up: a 
farmer was coming through the wood, and 
as he advanced he let fly such a volley of pro¬ 
fanity as was not customarily to be heard in 
that peaceful spot, or for that matter in any 
spot. The more printable of his remarks may 
be reduced to the following, 

“Ye’ll cut my birches and trample m’grass, 
will ye? Be off, ye godless sillies, or ye’ll rue 
this foolery!” 

His general attitude conveying some hint 
as to the manner in which he proposed to 
make them rue this foolery, the merrymakers 
retired with pardonable haste. The farmer 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


143 


tore down the Maypole and shook his fist at 
the enemy; one of them turned round to call 
at him, 

“Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” 

The farmer made no answer, but the taunt 
had put them in light spirits again, and as 
they went off toward the city it was with care¬ 
less laughter and jests at the expense of the 
incomprehensible fellow who had called them 
godless sillies. Well, anyhow, they had kept 
their evergreen boughs, discovering which 
important fact they fell to tickling and flick¬ 
ing one another, a pastime so hostile to effec¬ 
tive walking that the afternoon was far spent 
when they reached the city. A while of talk, 
then with waving hands and gay calls they 
parted,—she of the wine-colored frock went 
on alone. 

Alone upon her way, this street and that 
street, around a corner, a little way more, and 
turned in a gate. Passing through a spacious 
garden she ran up the steps of a house which 
was apparently the residence of people of taste 
and wealth, and vanished through the door 
without looking back—had she thrown a 
glance behind she would have seen, even 




144 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


though it was now twilight, the figure of a 
man standing at the gate. 

Ill 

Arthur Pentland at the gate, irresolute, 
striding off a little way, wheeling round and 
coming back, pausing, shifting his feet. The 
girl had disappeared within the walls off there 
behind the trees, and though he kept on peer¬ 
ing—cautiously, to be sure—he saw no more 

of her.Dusk.Lights showed 

at the windows.An hour passed 

.two.three. The streets 

were filling with people on their way to the 
theatre, but from the house which was his one 
concern, no sign. Another hour dragged by, 
and then there came upon the air the far- 
off call of the night watchman, making the 
rounds of the city, 

“Ten o’clock, and the moon is fullin’. Ten 
o’clock and a fullin’ moon.” 

The cry droned away and away into the 
silences, and Pentland lifted his eyes to where 
amid a galaxy of attendant stars the moon 
stood in its second quarter, a fulling and 
expanding moon, bursting with radiance and 








SUDDEN COMFORT 


145 


with life. He looked, and drew a great deep 
breath and glanced back at the house: the 
lights had vanished; the place was wrapped 
in blackness. Ah! 

Going on stealthy feet he stepped through 
the gate, paused to look up and down 
the street, and went on into the grounds, 
threading his way among the shrubs and trees, 
and halting, at length, to stare upon the house 
which rose up dark a little distance farther 
on. Again the watchman called, again the 
silence of the night surged back. There was 
no more scraping and clopping of feet from 
the street, no more smothered laughter from 
the theatre crowd loitering homeward. Mid¬ 
night .one o’clock, and still he lurked 

there. 

Stood there gazing at the house, while in 
the heavens the march of the constellations 
foretold the approach of another day. The 
stars, all night long steadfastly burning down, 
were paler now, softly closing one by one, like 
slumbrous eyes that have watched the dark¬ 
ness through, and sink down to well-earned 
rest. Softly closing one by one, and as they 
drew away their light, a hush fell on the world. 





146 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


All the city was still, the houses wrapped in 
slumber, and the very dogs, that through the 
night had barked their throats raw at the sail¬ 
ing moon, whimpered, stretched out to sleep. 
Silence came upon the world, upon the city, 
upon the garden where he stood, Pentland 
standing, watching, waiting for the life of that 
new day. 

From somewhere a breath of air came steal¬ 
ing, a cool young breeze that stirred the half- 
naked shrubbery gently, very gently, carrying 
the smell of unfolding bud, uncurling leaf,— 
all these fresh and pungent scents were spread 
abroad as up from out of the earth the spring¬ 
time growth came pushing,—a little breeze, 
softly coming and as softly going, drawing 
away as a herald goes, when he has told of 
the grandeur that’s approaching. 

Grandeur called by the name of dawn, faint 
streakings in the eastern sky, luminous mist 
spreading from a source still hidden: the 
world began to tingle with the surge of newly- 
wakened life. A cock crew distantly, and as 
if thus signalled to their work, a host of spar¬ 
rows dashed from the nooks that shelter them 
by night, sweeping down upon the streets as 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


147 


a devouring army, explorers of doorstep and 
window sill, plucking tit-bits from rubbish 
heaps, content with that which lavish man 
neglects and throws away, a horde of bustlers 
chattering so incessantly no other kind of bird 
could sleep. Across the glowing sky a dark 
line showed: the crows had left their roosts 
to wing abroad to where the fields had feeding 
for them all. 

Sparrows, crows, and now a thrush, one 
single solitary bird, a splendid creature of 
scintillating eye and fearless mien, a feathered 
beauty out of God’s treasure chest, alighting 
not so far from Arthur Pentland to pour forth 
its exquisite song, a wordless melody so pure, 
so sweet, it seemed to him divine, the voice of 
love itself, love speaking not in human words 
but in ecstatic breathings beyond the power of 
alphabet and script. A thrush singing at 
dawn, and as it sent out its music the very air 
seemed freshened and the light more as a 
radiance,—then Pentland saw Her coming. 

IV 

She was approaching from the house, a 
slender girlish figure clad in simple white, 




148 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


moving through the shrubbery with dignity 
and with grace. No pensive weakness showed 
in her, and no insipidity,—she was a gentle¬ 
woman clearly marked by poise, by strong and 
robust life kept in check. Her features were 
resolute yet delicately formed, her eyes large 
and luminous, grave thoughtful eyes, full of 
intelligence, and cradling mirth. In color they 
were a softly glowing brown, and her hair, car¬ 
ried back into a loose knot, was of a like shade, 
until it caught the gleaming of the morning 
light, and then it shone like polished bronze. 
The rays of the sun rising at her back appeared 
to Arthur Pentland as a heavenly nimbus for 
that fair head, a background and a setting 
for this lovely maiden, prime jewel of the uni¬ 
verse. 

Stepping lightly she came forward, tread¬ 
ing buoyantly, coming with sprightly feet, her 
eyes upon the thrush; it had stopped singing 
to fly to her, perching on her outstretched hand 
to get the crumbs she was offering. With a 
smile she gazed upon the bird—suddenly she 
lifted her head and saw Pentland. 

For a moment she stayed rigid with sur¬ 
prise, a hand pressed against her breast. 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


149 


She did not cry out, but only stared at him, 
and as she looked her face grew calm. There 
was a frank straightforward inquiry in her 
eyes; Pentland could not meet them. His 
gaze shifted to the ground, where the thrush 
was retrieving the crumbs she had let fall, and 
it was only after he had gulped and gulped 
that he managed to say, 

“I beg your pardon.” 

He ventured to give her an imploring 
glance, and bowed low, bowed humbly and 
with reverence, at which her manner softened 
a little. She inclined her head. Thus 
encouraged he went on, 

“Madam.I.I.May 

I explain how I.” 

She inclined her head a second time. 

“My name is Arthur Pentland,” he con¬ 
tinued, bolder now. “I live in Pittsburgh. I 
came to Philadelphia several weeks ago. Yes¬ 
terday I was resting along the turnpike. I 

saw you and.” 

The girl smiled, but quickly sobered again, 
for a note of intense earnestness had come into 
his voice, 

“I hope you won’t consider this improper— 







150 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


I mean what I want to say—but when I saw 
you for the first time, and I think so now, you 
are the very image and likeness of my mother. 
She—the cast of features—especially the lips 
—are different, but you have her wonderful 
brown eyes, and her wonderful brown hair, 
and your manner and gesture are exactly hers.” 

This complimentary speech appeared to up¬ 
set the lady, but Pentland stumbled on, oblivi¬ 
ous to the disturbance he was causing, 

“It was this likeness which brought me 
here. I know it was rude. Please forgive me. 
I could not help it. I seemed to be impelled 
by an irresistible force. I had to follow you. 
I hardly knew what I was doing. I don’t know 

yet, very well. Only.My mother was 

the only woman I.and now you. 

.... I—” 

He broke off in confusion, and reaching 
into his pocket with a trembling hand, added 
hurriedly, 

“I found the flowers you lost yesterday. 
Allow me.” 

With an abrupt gesture he held out the 
wilted bouquet. She hesitated, whereupon 
he exclaimed eagerly, 






SUDDEN COMFORT 


151 


“May I keep them?” 

She nodded silently. Pentland held the 
flowers to his heart, pale and trembling, the 
most prodigious efforts of his vocal organs 
bringing but one word from him, 

“Thanks.” 

The girl appeared to be on the point of 
taking flight, but Pentland’s breast had re¬ 
ceived such an accession of courage from the 
nearness of the bouquet that 
“Tell me, are you offended?” 

“No, I am not offended.” 

At these words, pronounced in a deliciously 
liquid and musical voice, Pentland was well- 
nigh swamped with rapture. He assured her 
that he was most eager to do everything pos¬ 
sible to make amends, etc. for the imprudence 
etc. etc., of which he had been guilty, and 
ended it all with this bold stammer, 

“Please don’t think me impertinent—but 
—is there—do you know of any reason why 
we should not become acquainted—that is, 
through the regular channels of social inter¬ 
course?” 

The amusement in her eyes went away 
before a sudden-coming gravity. 




152 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“I know of none,” she answered, “provided 
you are able to satisfy my father of your char¬ 
acter and position.” 

“Your father!” cried Pentland, as if he had 
never suspected that this lovely creature might 
possibly be a member of a human family. 
“Please tell me his name, and I shall take 
steps to make myself known to him.” 

“His name is John Galloway.” 

“John Galloway! John Galloway the mer¬ 
chant? Is it possible?” 

Yes. 

“What an extraordinary coincidence!” ex¬ 
claimed Pentland. “I’ve often heard my 
mother speak of your family! If I remember 
correctly, she knew both of your parents in 
her youth!” 

He was giving evidence of being willing to 
prolong the conversation indefinitely, but at 
this point the girl murmured in some uneasi¬ 
ness, 

“You must go now; it won’t be long till the 
servants are moving about.” 

“I’ll go at once! But won’t you tell me 
your given name before I go?” 

She flushed and turned aside her head, 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


153 


“My name is Laura Galloway.” 

“Laura Galloway! What a beautiful name! 
Au revoir, Miss Galloway, until we meet 
again.” 

“Au revoir , Mr. Pentland.” 

He executed a profound bow and walked 
rapidly away through the shrubbery and into 
the street. The girl followed him with her 
eyes until he had disappeared, and then smil¬ 
ingly she turned to the thrush and began to 
talk to it in a language meaningless to human 
ears, but one which birds understand very well 
indeed. 


V 

He’d said he would take steps to make him¬ 
self known to her father, and he did. It was 
a hard week’s work, and of a sort Pentland 
was unused to, but love is clever, and at last 
he met his man: Mr. John Galloway, sixty- 
two years upon his sagging shoulders, firm 
heartiness in his handclasp, red cheeks like 
apples, and a bald head full of anecdotes which 
began with racy hints and ended in bland 
innocence. Howdy do, and glad to know you, 
and then an afternoon when the once merchant 




154 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


took Pentland home to tea, poured by the 
mother, a bustling little woman whose bright 
brown eyes seemed caged but hopeful behind 
her heavy spectacles. Ten minutes more, and 
the girl came in, and Pentland couldn’t say 
if he did or didn’t take sugar in his tea. 

‘There is something in Miss Galloway’s 
manner,” he stammered, to cover his con¬ 
fusion, “which reminds me of my mother.” 

“Eh?” exclaimed the retired merchant. 
“Well, well, if that is true, let me thank you 
for the compliment. Nothing could afford me 
more pleasure than the assurance that my 
daughter recalls the ladies of the past gener¬ 
ation, for the olden time, sir, was celebrated 
for the charm and the grace and the dignity 
of its women. I have no desire to draw an 
invidious comparison, but many of the young 
ladies of to-day are far from possessing those 
virtues. However,” he added, with a quizzi¬ 
cal glance at the subject of discussion, “she 
is sometimes quite a romp.” 

“Why, father!” exclaimed the girl, and 
went still redder. 

“It is really remarkable,” observed Mrs. 
Galloway, “for as I recall your mother, Mr. 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


155 


Pentland, she did sometimes incline her head 
and also use her eyes the way our daughter 
does. It is a coincidence.” 

“And what a coincidence,” said Pentland, 
gracefully stirring his tea, “that both you and 
Mr. Galloway knew my mother when she lived 
in Philadelphia.” 

“As to that,” said the merchant, “I should 
hardly use the term ‘coincidence.’ You see, 
in the old days the city was still so small that 
one knew all of the members of one’s class as 
a matter of course. At the present time this 
is less likely to be the case; the city has grown 
tremendously since those days, and strangers 
have come in to such a degree as to disrupt 
the social classes of a half century ago. Phila¬ 
delphia,” he concluded, with a disapproving 
shake of his bald head, “is not what it used 
to be.” 

“I should like to have known it then,” mur¬ 
mured Pentland, “although I find it quite 
charming as it is. It is so much richer in 
tradition and culture than Pittsburgh. I am 
delighted with it.” 

“That’s very nice of you,” smiled the 
mother. “We old people who have spent our 




156 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


lives here are sometimes inclined to feel that 
things are changing for the worse, and I, for 
one, accept your compliments as a merited 
rebuke. What is it, daughter?” and she 
turned to the girl. 

“I think Brother has come in.” 

She had no sooner spoken than her brother 
appeared, entering the room with elastic step 
and showing himself as a man of curly hair 
and bold blue eyes, his dress somewhat garish 
and certainly careless. A brilliant fellow, 
Edward Galloway had political ambitions, but 
he likewise had a penchant for carousing and 
practical joking, and this to such a degree that 
at the age of thirty-five he had not made very 
much progress toward a career, in fact, to put 
it in his father’s words, he had made no prog¬ 
ress whatsoever. This in no wise detracted 
from his good spirits, however, nor did it ren¬ 
der him less popular with those who yielded 
to the charm of his forceful manner and the 
generous, if sometimes erratic promptings of 
his heart. 

Such was the individual to whom Arthur 
Pentland was now presented. 

Galloway ignored the formal bow which the 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


157 


guest had begun to execute, and reached out 
and shook his hand vigorously. Affecting a 
shudder of horror when his mother suggested 
that he have some tea, he rammed his hands in 
his pockets and briskly demanded to know 
what they had been talking about. They told 
him, whereupon he burst out, 

“Changes! Of course! Why not? What 
is life but change? There, sis,” turning to 
her with a grimace, “do give me credit for 
that bit of philosophy, and grant that you’re 
not the only budding thinker the family is 
showing forth! Yes, change, no doubt, no 
doubt, and woe to him who does not change 
as the conditions of his existence change. I 
can understand that the older generation is 
irked by incessant innovation, but as for me, I 
frankly like it. The country is shedding its 
exoskeleton. Growth is appearing from 
within, ha ha! Life is less formal, and freer, 
too, and certainly more interesting. Don’t 
imagine,” with a strong smile for Pentland, 
“that Philadelphia offers no diversions. I 
can show you no end of fun in our metropolis!” 
Pentland bowed politely, 

“I shall be delighted.” 




158 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


VI 

Delighted, for what could be more agree¬ 
able than the open favor of the brother of 
one’s beloved? At any rate, it seemed to 
Pentland a tremendous stroke of good for¬ 
tune that Edward Galloway should have taken 
a fancy to him, and accordingly he made efforts 
to be attractive to his new friend. He readily 
accepted his suggestion that he buy several 
outfits of fashionable clothing, although it 
must be admitted that he chose fabrics more 
subdued in tone than those so vehemently 
insisted upon by Galloway. He also acquired 
his first watch, together with a fine chain, and 
of his own accord even adopted a toothbrush, 
an invention new to him, and one which he 
had always scorned because he had once heard 
his grandfather Morton denounce it. All of 
this Galloway greeted with acclaim, commend¬ 
ing him for being a good fellow, and insisting; 
that they drop into a tavern to drink a toast to 
“Pentland renovated and transformed,” as he 
put it. 

“I’m glad you approve,” murmured he 

who’d been transformed, “and. 

and.” 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


159 


6 ‘And.and.What is it 

you are trying to say, my rollicking blade? 
Come now, I don’t have to bang my head 
against a lamp-post before I see it. I know 
very well where you want to send the conver¬ 
sation, so let’s have no more pretense. You 
want to talk about my sister, don’t you?” 

“Well!” gasped Pentland, “I must say you 
take my breath with your directness.” 

“Directness!” cried the other, seizing his 
mug of beer. “And isn’t directness a virtue? 
It’s the very core and heart of life itself! 
Down with ceremony and form and all other 
circumambulatory nonsense! It only con¬ 
fuses the underlying principle, the truth! the 
meaty nub of things! And bravo for Edward 
Galloway, for there’s a genuine and original 
thought,—an American thought, too—but my 
tongue is leading me astray. Now that you 
have your breath back, it’s true, isn’t it? you 
want to know if the heart of my fair sister is 
encumbered with any masculine vines!” 

“I—I—I—” 

“Well, since you demand it, I’ll tell you. 
Sister has never been in love. She has a lot 
of men friends, but no lover, for which I’m 





160 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


damned much obliged to Providence. Not 
many of the tosspots in our set are fit timber 
for a husbandly ship.” 

He paused to smile, 

“Well, say it!” 

“Then I will,” Pentland blurted out. “You 
have been frank; let me be equally candid. 
It must be no great secret to you that I enter¬ 
tain sentiments toward Miss Laura, which—” 

“What the devil kind of talk is that? In 
the King’s English, you love her, isn’t that 
it?” 

“Yes,” admitted Pentland, as soon as he 
could get his breath. 

“So you do love her!” laughed the brother, 
striking the table boisterously. “And no 
doubt you want to know her sentiments, as 
you call them! Well, I suppose I must tell 
you, since you have no way of discovering 
them yourself. Sis likes you,” he continued, 
serious all at once. “That’s all I can tell you 
—but it’s enough—at this stage of the game. 
You see, I’m the only one who’s impulsive; 
the rest of the family are sedate and slow to 
form opinions. As for the old folks, they are 
much taken with you, you lucky devil. Sister 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


161 


is twenty-five; you’re presumably thirty-six or 
seven. The difference in age my parents 
might well consider desirable. Father’s notion 
of the chaps of the present day is—er—rather 
uncomplimentary, to say the least. He looks 
upon you as commendably solid. Sensible, 
he calls it. Deuce take that word, anyhow!” 

“I am deeply gratified if your father—” 

“Very well, be gratified, but I say! if you 
are to become a member of the family, you’ll 
have to please us all. Parents are already 
half-won, but I tell you damned plainly that 
you are not agreeable to me as a prospective 
brother-in-law! You have a great fault, and 
I’ll be cursed for a Quaker if I let you marry 
my sis unless you promise to shed it!” 

Pentland stared in amazed confusion, stam¬ 
mering, 

“Why.why.what is it? 

Tell me, I beg of you.” 

“It’s your damned seriousness! Of that do 
purge yourself, I beg of you! What meaneth 
this lowered eye, this head bowed down in 
revery, as if a hidden canker did nibble at the 
rose? How’s that for Shakespeare? How 
now, fellow! Werther, warum dieses melan- 






162 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


choly, this pale gray and unquiet eye? Cas¬ 
sius, you think too much! Think less, act 
more! Frisk up and down the street of life 
a little!” 

“But I do!” 

“Ye gods! you say you do, but think not to 
deceive the falcon eye of Edward Galloway! 
Thou dost it numbly, with excruciating awk¬ 
wardness, as verily an elephant might go 
through a cotillion. Stiffly, my friend, with 
movement mechanical and ardor falsified, as 
if ’twere on a wager. You’re cool at fun, and 
then you’re hot, as if impelled by your will, 
and only your will, against the cake of custom 

which is your basic.can’t think of 

a word to end that with. All nonsense aside,” 
he ended abruptly, “the important thing is 
how you feel about Laura. Do you really 
love her?” 

“Love her!” repeated Pentland, in a daze. 
“Why! she is everything in the world to me!” 

“That’s a good deal!” 

“Every morning when I wake up, I am 
simply wild with joy if I know I am going to 
see her that day, but utterly miserable if I 
think I’m not going to see her. I don’t even 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


163 


think of anyone else, and when I am with her 
I am constantly in danger of overstepping the 
limits of good breeding—” 

“Imagine that!” 

“—because it is so hard for me to wrench 
myself away from her. I get so absorbed in 
all her virtues and accomplishments that I 
have no power to think, or act, or hardly 
breathe!” 

“Bravo! that’s love all right!” 

A painful flush spread in Pentland’s face, 

“You speak very lightly, it seems to me.” 

“Maybe I do,” said Galloway, gloomy all 
at once. “I don’t mean to slur what you’ve 
said, though. I felt that way myself—once 
upon a time—too bad the experience can’t be 
repeated. It comes but once, and after that 
—well, a stretched glove is a stretched glove. 
I won’t shock you with my opinion of the 
so-called gentler sex, but I’ll be God damned 
if the existence of my sister isn’t about the 
only assurance I have that virtue hasn’t aban¬ 
doned what my father calls the female half 
of the present generation. By Jesus Christ, 
Laura is an angel!” 

“That’s exactly how I feel about it,” cried 




164 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


Pentland. “She's an angel, a pure and lofty 
soul. What a wonderful influence she has on 
me! You know, ever since I can remember, I’ve 
been obsessed with a nervous unrest—it was 
like a hint that I ought to be about some sort 
of hidden business, be on my way somewhere, 
searching for I don’t know what. It was an 
urge that seemed to come from my very soul, 
a deep profound pulsation, driving me on to a 
kind of spiritual quest. It made me unhappy. 
I was wretched—afraid to follow so secret and 
curious a will-o’-the-wisp, but now that’s all 
gone. I am convinced that your sister repre¬ 
sents the end of my pilgrimage. Since meet¬ 
ing her, the whole universe has shed its sickish 
cast, its fog and confusion and turmoil and 
uncertainty; it has centered down to what is 
real, coming nearer and nearer to assume her 
outline and take shape in her. She is every¬ 
thing to me, Galloway, everything! If she 
only loved me I know I could get rid of the 
last remnants of my doubting and my sorrow, 
because in her I could extinguish all my long¬ 
ings, and merge my soul with what it has been 
seeking for so long, so long.” 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


165 


VII 

Eloquence! genuine eloquence! was what 
Galloway called this, but it was a burst rather 
than a steady flow, and was completely ex¬ 
hausted before the two friends left the tavern. 
There was not the slightest trace of Pentland’s 
effusion when next the lover came into the 
presence of the unwitting occasion of it, indeed 
he sank to greater and greater confusions, 
until the mangled metaphors and hyperboles 
to which he gave stammering expression were 
perhaps the most extraordinary that ever 
assaulted the female ear. 

Now Edward Galloway was a past master of 
what Ovid, the great physiologist, would have 
called the spicula et faces amoris , and when 
he saw that his friend knew nothing of the 
manipulation of the fair sex, he offered to act 
as his mentor. This suggestion, however, was 
repelled, for there are certain things which 
the most diffident of us insist upon doing 
for ourselves: one is making love and another 
is blowing the nose, really two very similar 
operations, for both may attract more atten¬ 
tion to us than we would wish for, and both 
may seem to subject us to the ridicule of the 




166 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


onlooker while appearing to ourselves (at 
least at the time) an unavoidable necessity. 

Determined to propel his own bark upon 
the sea of courtship, and unable to call up 
those flowery speeches of which lovers usually 
have a greater stock than anything else, Pent- 
land fell back upon the entertainments of the 
season. If the girl mentioned the river, he 
offered to take her boating, though he did not 
know an oar from a paddle. If she admitted 
that she liked the woods, they must go pick- 
nicking. Did she enjoy walking? So did he! 
What a coincidence! And what about the 
fashionable strawberry gardens, where every¬ 
one went for berries and cream? They must 
go there, too. All summer thus, and when the 
evenings grew cool, it was an exhibition of 
wax figures, and even a performance with the 
magic lantern. This last, however, pleased 
the girl more than it did Pentland, and as they 
left the hall and strolled homeward she mur¬ 
mured, 

“I’m afraid you didn’t like it. Did the chil¬ 
dren bother you?” 

“Well, they were noisy, don’t you think? 
But on the whole I enjoyed it. Did you?” 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


167 


“Very much, thank you. I’m eager for the 
dancing season to begin, though. Oh that 
will be heavenly! You must learn to waltz, 
Mr. Pentland, you’d love it.” 

Yes, yes, I quite agree. I shall have to 

learn.What would my mother say?” 

he went on with a wry smile. “She considered 
the waltz an innovation of very doubtful 
morality.” 

“Really? Poor little waltz, it’s quite proper 
now. The most respectable people dance it.” 

“Yes, yes, of course. I have no doubt of 
it, no doubt whatsoever. I just mentioned it 
as a curious fact. I suppose my mother pre¬ 
ferred the minuet. I remember her telling 
me, when I was a small child, how she enjoyed 
it. I can still recall her account of her gown, 
the color of it, its trimming,—every detail 
of her appearance.” 

“How odd! Really, Mr. Pentland, I think 
your mind’s eye sees your mother as clearly 
as your physical eye sees me at this moment.” 

He answered gravely, 

“My memory of her is very sharp and clear, 
especially so since I’ve known you, because 
your manner is so reminiscent of her. I used 





168 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


to tell her over and over again that I had no 
interest in other women because no one could 
possibly compare with her, but you are so 
nearly a pattern—” 

“Oh!” exclaimed the girl, casting about for 
some means of checking this, “Oh see! there 
is the celebrated scientist, Richard Bacon!” 

Pentland stopped short, 

“Where? Where?” 

“Too late. He’s gone. He seemed to be 
peering through the crowd at us. He is the 
illustrious scholar who is exciting so much 
interest,—but perhaps you know him?” 

“No.I don’t know him.” 

VIII 

Didn’t know him, but perhaps wanted to, 
for the next morning he walked briskly to the 
lodgings of the illustrious scholar. He gave 
the knocker one blow after another, but the 
door did not open, and though he fixed his eye 
upon the hole through which he had once been 
spied upon, he saw no sign of an ambush. So 
he went away, and came back later in the fore¬ 
noon: no admittance. A third time, and yet 
a fourth, he visited the house and attacked the 





SUDDEN COMFORT 


169 


unfortunate knocker: no answer. At length 
he dragged back to his room and stayed. 

All day, and the next day, too, he lan¬ 
guished there, gazing vacantly upon the floor, 
wetting his lips, twisting his handsome face, 
now rousing up to give himself a resounding 
whack on the brow, now falling back into a 
lethargy. Two days of squirming first upon 
one horn of the dilemma then upon the other, 
and after that a night full of moans,—it 
sounded just a little like praying. Perhaps 
he longed for light; if he did his prayer was 
answered, for the dawn came gently, and the 
world began to tingle with its new fresh life. 
After an hour or so he got up and made a list¬ 
less toilet. 

A knock at the door. 

66 Who is it?” he cried sharply. 

“Edward Galloway! Himself, no other!” 

“Come in.” 

Galloway strode into the room, gazing upon 
his friend with a mixture of concern and 
curiosity, 

“Where in Hell have you been keeping 
yourself ? Did you forget you were to come to 
dinner last evening?” 




170 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


Pentland mortified, 

“Oh I beg your pardon! I forgot it. How 
rude of me. Your family must have thought 
me a boor.” 

Galloway threw himself on the bed with a 
laugh, 

“Well, there was comment, to be sure, to 
be sure. Sister looked pensive and sighed at 
regular intervals throughout the meal, though 
the roast was uncommonly good and the pastry 
excellent. Ha ha ha! Father, well! he and 
mother swore up and down you were ill, for 
most positively, says they, a gentleman with 
manners polished to the dazzling point won’t 
fail a social engagement without good cause. 
As for myself,” he grinned, “I vouchsafed my 
own little brand of remark. Declares I, he’s 
plottin’ deviltry, for I’ve observed his looks 
to be as black as his hair of late, as if per¬ 
chance and peradventure holding inner con¬ 
verse with the denizens of some sable cave in 
Stygian land!” 

He broke into careless laughter; Pentland 
halted his restless pacing and turned to him, 
“A slight indisposition, that’s all. I hope 
you’ll carry my apologies to your family. Er, 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


171 


by the way,” he continued, with elaborate 
carelessness, “do you happen to have the 
acquaintance of Richard Bacon, the illustri¬ 
ous scientist?” 

Galloway’s smile dissolved into a scowl, 

“Richard Bacon, the illustrious scientist! 
Not I, though I do know a knave who calls 
himself by that name.” 

“Knave?” 

“Rogue, then,” growled the other. “Vil¬ 
lain, rascal, scoundrel, take your choice of 
terms.” 

“Well,” said Pentland, with a hollow little 
laugh, “you hold no high opinion of him, 

that’s certain. But tell me, seriously, er. 

er, what sort of.er.person is he?” 

“A bad sort. I’ve heard it rumored he was 
an accomplice of Cagliostro,—you know, the 
fellow who ran all over Italy selling a pre¬ 
tended elixir of immortal youth, and got mixed 
up in the Necklace Affair in France. This 
Bacon is said to have been chased out of 
Europe, and if I had anything to do with the 
ordering of our lovely city, he’d leave Phila¬ 
delphia with boot-marks on his backside, be¬ 
lieve me truly!” 







172 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“But.they say he is a very learned 

man.” 

“As to that, the devil only knows. He has 
the reputation of being a skin stuffed tight 
with erudition, but I happen to know that in 
much of his so-called scientific experiment he 
is more charlatan than scholar. Oh he’s 
clever, all right, clever as sin, damn him, but 
who wants to be clever at the expense of his 
wits?” 

“What!” 

“Of course!” laughed Galloway. “He’s a 
madman. Didn’t you see that lunatic stare 
he had the other day?” 

“When? Where?” 

“Why, Thursday, the day we went hunting 
up the river. He was following us, the 
damned rascal, but he may discover that’s 
dangerous pastime. When a fellow assures 
me that we’re partners in a trick, it’d better 
not turn out that I’m the only one that’s hold¬ 
ing the sack. He’s a two-faced bastard,—but 
why this interest in him?” 

‘Eh? Why—why nothing. I was simply 
curious. I’d heard gossip about him, is all. 
He seems to be an interesting character. I 





SUDDEN COMFORT 


173 


thought it.it would be entertaining to 

.to.meet him.” 


Arthur Pentland was destined to meet him 
sooner than he had expected. 

IX 

Sooner than he had expected, on the fol¬ 
lowing Christmas Eve, in fact, though as he 
stood at his looking glass dressing and per¬ 
fuming himself, he had no suspicion that it 
was Richard Bacon, Esquire, who was to ren¬ 
der the evening memorable. Indeed, he was 
not even thinking of the villain, rascal, scoun¬ 
drel, take your choice of terms, his mind being 
engaged with Miss Laura Galloway. It was 
she, and she alone, who possessed his thoughts, 
—and his eye also, when an hour later he was 
ushered into her presence. 

Pentland had never seen her lovelier, and 
he was ruminating upon the advisability of 

telling her so.her father entered the 

room, his face aglow with the Holiday festivi¬ 
ties of which he was so fond. A genial smile 
and a hearty handclasp went out in welcome 
to the guest, and when Pentland murmured 
some phrases complimentary to the blaze leap- 






174 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


ing on the hearth, the old gentleman’s smile 
broadened until his cheeks stuck out like rosy 
apples. 

“The open fire,” he exclaimed, nodding 
briskly, “is the very heart of the household.” 

“I quite agree with you,” said Pentland, 
and stretched his hands to the warmth. “As 
my mother used to say, there is nothing like 
an open fire.” 

“Never a truer word spoken! A fine blaze 
of logs, what could be more pleasant? The 
sight of the flames, the smell of the wood 
smoke, all this has a wonderfully heartening 
effect upon the human sentiments. I’ve heard 
it said that some of our newly-wedded young 
people are intending to build without fire¬ 
places, but for my part I had as lief be quar¬ 
tered in a cellar as in a house not liberally 
provided with them.” 

Pentland quite agreed. 

“Yes,” continued Mr. Galloway, with a 
musing gaze into the flames, “what would a 
home be, without fireplaces? Especially at 
the Christmas season! Ah! to see a good old 
Yule log, a great sturdy oak log dragged in 
out of the snow with ropes and placed upon 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


175 


the hearth as a foundation for the fire, what 
could be finer? But alas! the Yule log is but 
a memory with us, and any attempt to revive 
it would end in ridicule. Even the tales of 
oldtime Christmases in Merrie England are 
smiled at nowadays. The greater number of 
the young generation have no understanding 
of old customs, and certainly no reverence for 
such things. To them it is all a weak indul¬ 
gence of ancient folk, and just a little silly, 
also.” 

“Papa dear,” interrupted Laura, and kissed 
him lightly on the bald head, “you are so 
intent on your Yule log that you are neglect¬ 
ing my candelabra.” 

The two gentlemen made haste to turn and 
admire the candles which she had lit about 
the room. Pentland gave her a polite compli¬ 
ment, while the father beamed his pleasure 
and said, 

“Very pretty, my dear, very. You’ve 
arranged them beautifully, upon my word you 
have. What a treasure you are,” transferring 
his gaze to her, “a treasure,—there is no other 
word for it. Mr. Pentland, if ever there was 
a peacemaker between the old and the new, it 




176 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


is my daughter. She has a genius for recon¬ 
ciling tradition and innovation, and she does 
it with such grace that even an old fellow like 
myself finds himself almost content with the 
hurly burly of modern life.” 

“If you will excuse me, papa,” murmured 
the embarrassed girl, ‘Til go see if the kitchen 
is decorated. The servants have been quite 
indifferent about the mistletoe this year.” 

The father nodded, calling after her as she 
hurried away, 

“Have them put up plenty of greenery. I 
maintain,” he continued, turning back to Pent- 
land, “that the joy of the season should be 
apparent throughout the entire house—but 
here is Mrs. Galloway.” 

The mother had come in, and Laura pres¬ 
ently returning, they went into the dining 
hall, a spacious chamber warmed by a huge 
blaze of logs upon the hearth and lighted by 
a brave galaxy of candles. In the center of 
the apartment stood the supper table, covered 
with stiff white linen and decorated with sprigs 
of holly and glistening silver. Good smells 
came drifting from the board: it was loaded 
with dishes, and the dishes with a variety of 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


177 


substantial viands of the old-fashioned variety, 
steaming hot. 

“But Edward,” exclaimed the father, as 
they took their places. 

“He hasn’t come in yet,” said Laura gently. 

Mr. Galloway bowed his head and said 
grace, but when he raised his eyes and spoke 
again, there was a mild irritation in his voice, 

“Larking about in public, I suppose,—on 
Christmas Eve of all times. Ah! home and 
fireside mean little to that fellow.” 

“My dear,” said Mrs. Galloway, “won’t you 
begin to carve? Otherwise I’m afraid Mr. 
Pentland will think us lacking in hospitality.” 

“God forbid!” cried her husband, seizing 
the knife and fork. “Hospitality, Mr. Pent- 
land, is one virtue which I frankly claim, and 
moreover one which I strive to retain, par¬ 
ticularly in these days when it seems to be 
falling out of fashion. Good old hearty gath¬ 
erings at table are more and more infrequent 

nowadays.I am tempted to believe 

(here he paused to contemplate a further 
attack upon the already prostrate fowl), I am 
tempted to believe that the time will come 
when the younger generation will invite their 





178 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


guests to take Christmas dinner with them at 
an inn or some other public hostelry!” 

At this fanciful prediction there was a ripple 
of general laughter, and between the jovial 
talk and the more tangible comfort heaped 
upon his plate, the host threw off the annoy¬ 
ance which the absence of his son had occa¬ 
sioned him. As for Pentland, he used his 
teeth to good advantage, though if he had been 
asked he would no doubt have declared that 
he preferred gazing at a certain lovely face 
to all the hot minced pie which the kitchens 
of the world afforded. 

“Husband,” said Mrs. Galloway, “I 
wouldn’t insist, if I were you. I remem¬ 
ber his telling me that he has suffered from 
indigestion ever since he was a child, and 
minced pie, especially as we make it at this 
season, is not calculated to improve stomach 
disorders.” 

“Stuff and nonsense!” cried the old gentle¬ 
man. “Minced pie could not possibly hurt 
anyone, especially on Christmas Eve. Mr. 
Pentland!” 

“To be perfectly candid,” said Pentland, 
with an inclination of the head in the direc- 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


179 


tion of his hostess, “I think I’d enjoy a second 
piece. It is true, as Mrs. Galloway reminds 
me, that I’ve always been troubled with indi¬ 
gestion, but curiously enough it has lately 
deserted me. In fact, now that I think of it, 
I have been free from it ever since my arrival 
in Philadelphia. The climate must agree with 
me.” 

“I am delighted to hear it,” exclaimed Mrs. 
Galloway. 

“I suppose,” remarked the host, “that you 
have been to visit your ancestral home, the old 
Morton house?” 

A shadow passed over Pentland’s face. 

“I have,” said he, soberly. “That is to say, 
I visited what remains of it. They’ve torn 
down the old mansion to make room for some 
small wooden houses, you know, really noth¬ 
ing hut chicken coops. The oaks have been 
cut down, and a row of poplars planted in 
their stead, and the old-fashioned garden that 
my mother used to tell me so much about was 
all trampled down,—it was a most disheart¬ 
ening sight.” 

“It is only another instance of the profound 
changes which are going on all about us,” 




180 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


rejoined the merchant. “The American Revo¬ 
lution is commonly spoken of as a political 
upheaval, but in a very insidious way it was 
a social cataclysm as well. I insist that we 
are not viewing the matter with the serious¬ 
ness it deserves.” 

Miss Galloway turned to Pentland with a 
smile, 

“Father is now launched upon his favorite 
topic.” 

“It is a very serious matter,” continued 
the old gentleman argumentatively. “The 
Revolution reduced the influence of the well¬ 
born classes, and as the older generation of 
statesmen have died out, politics have come 
more and more under the control of men dis¬ 
tinctively American in training and ideals. 
The development has both its good side and 
its bad side, but I confess I see but bad side 
in the decay of culture which has accompanied 
this political change. The average American 
scoffs at learning and tradition, and certainly 
at manners; at the same time he actually ven¬ 
erates the physical and violent side of life. 
This I contend amounts to a reversion to bar¬ 
barism, and the time will come when the 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


181 


American people will fetch up in a cul-de-sac 
of materialism. They will discover, then, to 
use the old Morton estate as a figure of speech, 
that they have destroyed a stone mansion to 
erect flimsy dwellings of wood, and that instead 
of sturdy long-lived oaks they have planted 
soft poplars!” 

Pentland quite agreed, but Mrs. Galloway 
did not, 

I think you give the Americans too little 
credit for the ease with which they right them¬ 
selves when once they are convinced that they 
have been pursuing a wrong course. And then 
again they have such tremendous energy.” 

“Energy they certainly have,” admitted her 
husband, but energy is to be commended 
only when rightly used. These people are 
over-confident to the point of imprudence, 
which is more likely to pile blunder upon 
blunder than it is to cause progress in the right 
direction.” 

Pentland had no opportunity to quite agree 
with this, for Mrs. Galloway responded very 
quickly, 

“Over-confidence is a youthful trait, John. 
We’ll outgrow it.” 




182 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


But her husband wasn’t so sure of this, 

“My dear, you and Laura are forever pal¬ 
liating the faults of the Americans by declar¬ 
ing them a young people, but it seems to me 
that it is about time that they were showing 
signs of growing up. An infant that con¬ 
tinues an infant too long is properly called 
a monstrosity rather than a normal individual, 
—don’t you think so? The nation is com¬ 
posed largely of individuals who are child¬ 
ishly turbulent. They fret at convention and 
tradition, and are so active that they must 
constantly be jumping from one thing to 
another, like grasshoppers. In my opinion, 
this lack of root will prove an effective enemy 
to national development.” 

“I fear you are too quick to condemn,” per¬ 
sisted Mrs. Galloway, whose eyes had grown 
very bright behind their spectacles. “This 
new America is primarily a land of action, and 
though it may be turbulent, and seem to us 
to be without root, it is not necessarily so. I 
myself am of the opinion that it is all a phase 
of a wonderful quest, at the end of which the 
mature physical body of America is to find its 
spiritual self, its soul.” 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


183 


66 Ah! wife,” exclaimed the old gentleman, 
and made her a deferential bow, “that is a 
beautiful thought, and I trust you are right 
and I wrong,—but I am not reassured by the 
flavor of the times. Whether from the influ¬ 
ence of the French Revolution or from the 
inherent nature of democracy, our life is being 
saturated with the doctrines of complete and 
final emancipation, emancipation from politi¬ 
cal authority, emancipation from tradition, 
emancipation from religion. I am convinced 
that secret forces are forming in array against 
our Christianity, and that they are going to 
crack its shell and promulgate throughout 
America such a babel of ideas as will result in 
moral confusion of the gravest proportions. 
Well, Laura?” 

“I don’t mean to interrupt you, papa, but 
may I be excused?” 

“For what purpose?” 

“I have some gifts to distribute, and I’ve 
promised to bring them this evening.” 

“But surely you aren’t going out alone?” 

The girl hesitated, 

“Edward was to help me, but as he is not 
here, perhaps Mr. Pentland—” 




184 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


Delighted. 

“Well, well,” murmured Mr. Galloway, as 
they rose from the table, “I suppose you must 
go, but come back as soon as you can, both 
of you. A home without children on Christ¬ 
mas Eve is a sorry spot. By the way,” bright¬ 
ening up, “if you meet Edward bring him 
back, and some of his friends with him, and 
we’ll play a few old-fashioned games: hood- 
man blind, and shoe the wild mare, and even 


bob apple, if you like.old games 

.now half forgotten.time 


brings many changes, eh mother?. 

Well, well, run along, but hurry back.” 

X 

They set out. 

It had begun to snow, and as the flakes 
drifted out of the heavens and down upon the 
city, they wove a lazy veil of spongy white, 
through which the street lamps shone with 
the radiance of candles. The snow had made 
the pavement slippery, so that the girl had to 
hold tight to Pentland’s arm, a circumstance 
which put him in such a daze that he would 
gladly have walked to Jericho, and probably 









SUDDEN COMFORT 


185 


would actually have done so, but—here we 
are that house to the right—they proceeded 
to distribute their cheery words and more 
substantial presents among the poor, and at 
last with empty bag and full hearts, started 
back. 

The streets were filling with people, until 
the evening air rang with their laughter and 
with the merry tinkle tinkling of the bells 
dashed to and fro by horses drawing sleighs. 
The snow had turned to slush. Pentland was 
afraid Miss Galloway’s shoes were so thin 
she’d catch cold. She was smiling at him, 
insisting that she never caught cold. All at 
once they were surrounded by a number of 
masked figures, grimacing and making un¬ 
couth sounds in imitation of various animals. 
One fellow wore a peaked hat of red and 
yellow, and from the looks of the rest of his 
costume he was apparently intended to repre¬ 
sent George Washington. To Pentland’s rage 
this unknown lurched up to Miss Galloway, 
growling, 

“Give us a kiss, pretty one.” 

The girl smilingly jerked off the mask: it 
was her brother. 




186 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


In the uproar that followed, young Gal¬ 
loway demanded that Pentland join the mum¬ 
ming party, and would hear of no refusal. 
With jest and song the masqueraders escorted 
the girl to her door, and having applauded her 
invitation to come back for indoor games later 
in the evening, they seized Pentland and hur¬ 
ried off. Another mask conjured up, he was 
disguised as 6 ‘Little Devil Doubt,” and away 
they went, jostling their noisy way through 
the crowded streets, and coming, at length, to 
the house of one held to be fit meat for a 
mummer’s jest. Ordering his followers to 
form in a semicircle before the door, Galloway 
adjusted his mask and gave the knocker a 
violent blow, shouting, 

“0 here come /, old Beelzebub! 

Open ye up to my rubadub dub!' 9 

The door opened and a face appeared, 
whereupon a mummer disguised as Father 
Christmas cried out, 

“Are we welcome or are we not? 

If not , we 9 ll never be forgot! 99 

“Welcome!” cried the householder, good- 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


187 


naturedly peering at his visitors in the effort 
to discover who they really were. 

Galloway (or rather George Washington) 
now burst out, 

“Pull out thy purse to pay , 

Or else we'll never go away!" 

Thus admonished, the victim tossed them 
some coins, and having caught these up with 
shouts of laughter, the mummers hurried off 
to the nearest tavern to spend what they termed 
their earnings. Beer and cakes consumed, they 
went out again, gay and noisy and voluble, 
though it must be admitted that they went 
through the traditional pageant with no very 
clear notion as to the basis of it, much as 
tears are shed by young girls between the age 
of hay and grass. They visited another house, 
another and another, returning after each 
prank to the tavern selected by them as head¬ 
quarters,—here they sat at about the hour of 
ten. The cakes had been forgotten, beer 
abandoned for brandy, and the mummers 
were rapidly filling with good spirits when 
a shabbily-dressed youth came up to their 
table, 




188 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


6 ‘Lottery tickets, gentleman. Take a 
chance and win a fortune.” 

“Get the devil away from here!” cried Gal¬ 
loway, in a voice strongly laced with liquor. 

“No more lotteries, eh?” laughed Father 
Christmas, and poked George Washington in 
the ribs. “Let’s have a throw at dice, what 
say?” 

He seized the box and started to throw, but 
Galloway struck up his hand, growling, 

“To hell with dice, and lotteries, too. I’m 
through.” 

At this there was a laugh from all save 
Pentland, who was yet to see the force of the 
allusion. 

“So the code didn’t work!” guffawed Father 
Christmas. “Bah! you might have known 
better! What could the Cabala have to do 
with the calculation of lucky numbers! Oho! 
Bacon got the best of you there!” 

So he did,” admitted Galloway, staring 
savagely upon the sanded floor at his feet, 
“but I’ll get the better of him for that trick 
some day.” 

“I say!” exclaimed a mummer who had not 
yet spoken, “let’s pay the rascal a visit this 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


189 


very night! If he doesn’t give us dole we’ll 
give ’im a trouncin’, what d’ye say?” 

Done! cried Galloway, and having 
strengthened his voice with the remnant of 
the brandy in his glass, he made some violent 
comments on the genealogy of Richard Bacon, 
Esquire, and sprang to his feet and jammed 
on his mask, thereby transforming himself 
into George Washington. Followed by his 
fellow mummers, he issued into the street, 
staggering in a manner ill befitting the father 
of a country. With his club placed belliger¬ 
ently upon his shoulder, he fell to singing, 

“Here come I, George Washington, honor 
bright! 

Many a Britisher did I subdue. 

And ran a bloody Tory through ,— 

He’ll give five shillin’s, else he’ll fight!” 

After this he furnished the neighborhood 
with a second song, punctuated with hiccoughs 
even more plentifully than the first,—and 
looked up to see Bacon’s house standing 
before them. Seizing his club, Galloway 
began to pound at the door, crying, 




190 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“0 hell is dark! 0 hell is deep!" 

0 hell is full of mist! 

What pity when a wicked soul 
Departeth Savior Christ /” 

A negress appeared at the door, at which 
the mummers applauded. 

“Hark ye and give heed, base slave!” cried 
Galloway. “We are hungry Knights, gone 
astray in search of a certain piece of bacon. 
He hath refuge in this place, we know damned 
well, so hoist him forth, or by the gods that 
strengthen the arms of Knights, we’ll knock 
the house about your ears!” 

To this extraordinary suggestion the servant 
replied that her master was ill, and asked them 
to go away, but Galloway rejoined with some 
reflections upon the practices of black women 
in general and one in particular, ending his 
discourse on African virtue with a bellow to 
the effect that the double damned and triple 
accursed Bacon had best appear. 

No sooner were the words out of his mouth 
than the pale face of the scientist appeared 
in the doorway. His features were trembling 
with rage, but before he could speak, Galloway 
made a threatening gesture with his club, 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


191 


“Five shillings, you son of a whore, or else 
a drubbing this very minute!” 

With a cry Bacon suddenly struck him in 
the face, knocking him down the flight of 
steps to the street. 

“You dog!” screamed the scientist, and 
sprang after him. “I—” 

Sprang—stumbled over the foot of Father 
Christmas (which somehow got in his way) 
and fell headlong down the steps,—and so he 
never finished his sentence: one does not feel 
like talking when one has a broken neck. 

XI 

There is an ancient proverb to the effect that 
when the ox is down, every one sharpens his 
knife,—and such proved to be the case with 
Mr. Richard Bacon, the illustrious scientist. 

He gave up the ghost on Christmas Day, and 
although there were those who denounced the 
prank played by the mummers, public opinion 
soon turned in another direction: each passing 
hour added to the list of persons who volun¬ 
teered disparaging remarks concerning the 
dead man. In short, it was the consensus of 
belief that the fellow had dabbled in matters 




192 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


too near the occult and the sacrilegious to 
be a desirable citizen, and that upon the whole 
and in general and after all has been said and 
done, the city was better off without his dubi¬ 
ous and baleful personality. 

To be sure, there was a judicial inquiry,— 
at which Edward Galloway came forward and 
frankly acknowledged himself the leading fig¬ 
ure in the escapade, taking upon his own 
shoulders full responsibility for the mummery 
at the door of the said Bacon. He manfully 
declared the whole thing a practical joke, and 
it was proved that the scientist had not only 
struck the first blow but had come to his death 
accidentally, while pursuing the felonious 
assault. These circumstances, together with 
the high standing of the Galloway family and 
the unsavory reputation of the dead man, per¬ 
suaded the magistrate to dismiss the culprits. 
He warned them, however, to forego their anti¬ 
quated and nonsensical frolic in the future. 

“Hoity-toity!” exclaimed Galloway, as in 
company with Arthur Pentland he left the 
presence of the magistrate, “that’s the end of 
mumming in dear old Philly. First cockfight¬ 
ing is unseemly, then horse racing is ungodly, 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


193 


and now a bas with mummery! The place is 
going to the dogs, that’s my opinion of it. I 
give it thirty weeks to be turned into a national 
retreat for old ladies!” 

Pentland continued to stride along with 
moody face, saying nothing. 

“Come!” cried Galloway, “don’t be cast 
down. The fellow was a scoundrel, and sick 
enough to die anyway. We aren’t responsible 
for his untimely demise, as the books would 
say. Don’t think any more about him.” 

“I am not thinking of him.” 

No? Then in the name of Heaven who 
is occupying your mind so absorbingly that 
you don’t laugh at my clever remarks? Aha! 
I begin to see, cried the blind man! A glass 
of rum you’re thinking of sis.” 

“I am.” 

“No doubt of it! You generally are think¬ 
ing of her,—thinking, that’s all. Pentland, 
you’ve got furrows in your brow from your 
damned excogitations, but doers are better 
than thinkers. I begin to believe you don’t 
love her after all.” 

“Not love her!” cried Pentland. “I adore 
her! I worship her as a divine being. I’ve 




194 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


hesitated because of a point of honor. For 
months I have suffered the torments of a lost 
soul, but at last everything has cleared up. 
There is no longer a barrier between us. Great 
God, don’t make sport of me. I’ve been like 
a drowning man, and she is the straw I clutch 
at. Oh Christ! I can’t live without her! do 
you hear me?” 

Galloway slapped his friend on the back, 
exclaiming, 

“Bravo! But I say! if all this ecstatic 
ecstasy doth in your ecstatic bosom reign, why 
the devil don’t you purge it? Don’t go on 
reading Pope’s verses to her. Ask her to 
marry you, confound you!” 

“I will!” 

“The idea just occurred to you, eh? Come, 
old chap, I’m a good fellow. I’ll help you, 
though I’m far from certain as to her senti¬ 
ments, as you call them. Call to-morrow after¬ 
noon. I’ll see to it that she’s alone and in 
proper mood. What d’ye say?” 

“Yes!” cried Pentland. “Let it be to¬ 
morrow! I must know my fate!” 

“All right, then, toss off your melancholy. 
And don’t think any more about this scamp 




SUDDEN COMFORT 


195 


Bacon. To-morrow’s another day, another day 
and a new day.” 

“A new day!” cried Arthur Pentland, with 
shaking lips. “To-morrow is a new day! Oh 
it must be! A new day! A new day! A new 
day!” 


























* 

































































































































































































































































































































































Time Displaces His Wife 
As Bedfellow 









\ 













♦ 







I 


The servants in the old brick house in 
Pittsburgh had awaited the coming of the new 
mistress with trepidation, but when at last the 
talked-of day arrived, and the master stepped 
through the door with his bride on his arm, 
the staring blacks needed but one look at the 
face of Laura Pentland: they smiled. 

The passing days showed her kind to them 
yet never mawkish, firm without harshness, 
rich in tact but not weak. Her insight they 
repaid with confidence, her sympathy with an 
intense affection,—and she, she took her place 
in the household with ease, discharging her 
duties with modest dignity, and finding it all 
a very charming happy life. Everything went 
smoothly and in the old grooves, so that very 
quickly Arthur Pentland sank back into the 
routine he had been used to before his mother’s 
death. 

“I wouldn’t have believed it possible,” he 
murmured, as they sat on the front porch one 
day. 


199 


200 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Wouldn’t have believed what possible?” 
smiled the wife. 

“That peace could have come back to 

me.Mother’s death left me utterly 

wretched, lost, miserable. I felt myself sink¬ 
ing into a horrible maelstrom, and then I met 
you. You’ve brought me comfort and all the 
content I’d known with Mother. She would 
have loved you, Laura.” 

“I should like to have known her.” 

“We were so close,” he went on musingly. 
“Always doing little things together. She 
selected those rhododendrons over yonder and 
I set them out; it must be twenty years ago, 
and yet I recall every detail of it.” 

“Ah! there is your redoubtable memory 
again! For shame, sir, you make me feel 
weak-minded, for the pocket of my own recol¬ 
lection has no such depths. By the way,” in 
a bantering tone, “perhaps you can tell me, 
since your memory is so vivid, who broke the 
sundial out there by the lilac bush!” 

She turned to him carelessly: his face was 
white and very tense. 

“Who had that repaired?” he gasped. 

“Why, Arthur, I did. I thought it would 





TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 201 


please you. It helps to keep the grounds as 
they were when you were a boy. Are you 
offended?” 

“No no no, of course not. I was merely 
surprised, that’s all. Let’s not say anything 
more about it. It is a matter of no conse¬ 
quence. A sundial is only a sundial.” 

II 

A sundial is only a sundial, really a mat¬ 
ter of no consequence, being no more than a 
languid march of tiny shadows round and 
round, a pointless march save that it wraps 
and binds to robust heartiness the life that’s 
infancy and youth and early middle age,—but 
this is all a gift, so common a gift that we 
accept it carelessly, and think no more about 
it. Only a sundial, really, soft shadows steal¬ 
ing softly round, a pointless march save that 
it saps and sucks and sobers us when life is 
past high noon: far off in Philadelphia the 
mother of Arthur Pentland’s wife had paid her 
debt to Nature. Sundial that marks the 
shadows stealing on white heads, marks years 
and months and days and then the precious 
minutes: far off in Philadelphia the father of 




202 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


Arthur Pentland’s wife lay on his bed, his face 
blanched to the hue of the pillow there be¬ 
neath it; the once red cheeks were pale, the 
lips shrunken into silence; he had retired from 
business long years ago, and now he resigned 
from partnership in earthly life. 

“With both of them gone,” said Mrs. Pent- 
land one thoughtful day, “I fear for Edward. 
He is wayward, you know, and now there is 
no one to hold him in check. May I invite 
him here?” 

“Of course.” 

And so she wrote warm urgent letters to 
the wayward one, posting them to Maryland 
and later on to Georgia, to somewhere in Ken¬ 
tucky, Illinois and Indiana, for he was wan¬ 
dering. Careless scrawly notes came back to 
her; she abandoned hope, then one quiet 
afternoon a strong voice sounded at the door, 
the gaping servant was shoved aside, and in 
he strode. 

Edward Galloway stood before them, the 
same, yet different: his eyes were just a little 
bloodshot, his face was full of telltale saggings, 
the mirth that leaped out of his bold blue eyes 
was somehow rough, violent. The hair upon 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 203 


his curly head had been cropped short and 
not very evenly. Edward Galloway, in the 
year 1830. 

Hello there, sis!” he cried, and seized her 
in his arms. “Hello Pentie, how are ye, how 
are ye? God! how limp your hand is, but 
say! you’re looking fine. Not a day older than 
when I saw ye last.” 

“Why Edward!” exclaimed Mrs. Pentland, 
rearranging her hair, “how roughly you’re 
dressed—like a laborer.” 

Galloway threw himself into a chair, 

“Deuce take it, sister, you’re behind the 
times. Know ye not that Jackson is Presi¬ 
dent, and therefore all class distinctions must 
go? We’re all to dress alike. No longer 
aristocrat I, but Citizen Galloway. Salute me, 
in the name of the common man!” 

Arthur Pentland surveyed his brother-in- 
law from head to foot, 

“So you are turning democrat?” 

“Turning?” guffawed the other. “I’ve 
turned! I’m out to discover what’s in this 
notion of democracy.” 

“There’s nothing in it,” said frowning Pent¬ 
land, “nothing but evil.” 




204 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Tush! tush! as my old father used to say. 
Nothing is altogether evil or altogether good. 
Why, even I have my bad points! Only chil¬ 
dren see things all of one color, labelling this 
all good and wonderful, and that all bad and 
horrid. You see, I’m turning moralizer!” 

Pentland made no reply, though it was to 
be observed that as the days passed, his hospi¬ 
tality drooped and cooled. 

This did not dampen Galloway, however: 
he ran all over the town, climbed Flare’s Knob 
to have a look, and came back full of 
enthusiasm, 

“By God, Pentie, what a place! Bursting 
with life! Bustling, hustling, tussling, rust¬ 
ling! Thought ye said it was a quiet village 
in a sequestered vale!” 

Pittsburgh is changing. There was a 
time—” 

“Was there, now! Well, let it go to the 
devil, and don’t be lamenting it, for Lord’s 
sake. To listen to you rattling your jaw, a 
fellow would think the past was perfect. You 
harp on the old used-to-be time till it bulks 
up in your mind more than its due. You 
magnify it through your.your, well! 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 205 


whatever you magnify with. Yes, and you 
glorify it till it becomes a virtual lie. Now I, 
by the Great Horn Spoon, I enjoy the present, 
and if I look anywhere else, I cast mine little 
eye upon the future—” 

Mrs. Pentland came into the room. 

66 —not the past. Hello, sis! ” 

“The future!” retorted Pentland, and 
walked across the room to sink into a chair 
beside his wife, “I dread to think of it. De¬ 
mocracy will most certainly reduce the country 
to anarchy. This universal manhood suffrage 
is already placing all power in the hands of 
the poor and the ignorant and the property¬ 
less.” 

“What of it?” grinned Galloway, winking 
at his sister. 

“What of it! If you were to live in Pitts¬ 
burgh a while, you would soon see what of 
it. Why! in this town no one but an ill-bred 
and loud-mouthed ignoramus stands the 
slightest chance of being placed in office. 
Upon the one occasion that I did go to the 
polls—you will remember, Laura, it was at 
your instigation—I came away with oaths 
ringing in my ears, and my boots covered with 





206 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


tobacco juice. It is in such pigsties that fel¬ 
lows like Carson are chosen to govern us!” 

Who s Carson?” demanded Galloway, 
searching his pockets for a cigar. 

“Our mayor,” said his sister. 

“Our champion boor,” said his brother-in- 
law. “Laura and I were so unmindful as to 
accept his invitation to dinner some time ago, 
and such a penchant for loud talk and coarse 
laughter I have rarely remarked at a gathering 
of supposedly civilized people. The mayor 
stared every one out of countenance, and when 
he wasn t bragging of the price of his furniture 
he was devouring his food like a beast.” 

Mrs. Pentland, 

It is true his manners are unpolished, but 
you must remember, Arthur, that he began 
life as an artisan. He has had to work hard. 
I imagine he hasn’t had a chance to perfect 
himself in the social graces.” 

^ Nonsense, Laura, ’ cried factus homo. 
“He has no desire to do so. Besides, gentle¬ 
men are born, not made.” 

Hear! Hear! ’ exclaimed Galloway, osten¬ 
tatiously striking a match on the seat of his 
trousers. 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 207 


“Breeding is breeding,” maintained Pent- 
land, “though it’s getting so the terms ‘lady’ 
and ‘gentleman’ are applied to people of every 
sort and condition. The wife of our mayor 
tells as a jest—a jest mind you, that her hired 
girl is imitating her methods of hairdressing! 
The hussy takes every occasion to avoid using 
the word ‘mistress’ and to speak of herself as 
a lady! Mrs. Carson laughs at the creature’s 
pretensions, and secretly encourages them, I 
have no doubt. In this topsy-turvy land vul¬ 
garity and impertinence are considered virtues. 
Politeness has become a sign of servility, and 
praise is meted out to every illiterate upstart 
who has the effrontery to proclaim himself as 
good as his superiors. I quite agree with my 
grandfather that—” 

“My God!” cried Galloway, “he’s bring¬ 
ing his grandfather back to earth!” 

“I beg your pardon!” 

“Do so, and be damned to you, but don’t 
go ramming a dead man down my throat. Your 
grandfather was an old-time aristocrat, and as 
they say out West, ‘we hain’t got no time fer 
sech.’ ” 




208 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


Pentland left off chewing his moustache to 
announce coldly, deliberately, 

“If the country had a few more citizens of 
the type of my grandfather, it would most 
certainly be better off than it is at present.” 

“Worse off, you mean,” laughed the other. 
“Now, listen! this is all nonsense about aris¬ 
tocracy. Your notion of the socially elect is 
unhealthy. It embeds you in senseless custom 
and draws you away from life, distorts your 
view. It clogs you with form and old tradi¬ 
tion, and offers you shadow for substance. 
Pentie, you’re standing still, I tell you. 
You’ve got the same old exclusive notions you 
always had—must’ve inherited them from 
your grandfather along with this house. Say! 
why don’t ye be like me? Turn democrat and 
brim over with life, gents, or your money re¬ 
funded! Why, I generate a new idea every 
five minutes! Some of ’em are a little loose 
in the joints, ’tis very true, quoth he, but I 
make up in quantity what I lack in quality. 
Quality! bah, the word’s as weak as that tea 
we had last night. Quantity! that’s what we 
want, and what we’ve got. Numbers, size, 
bigness, behold America! What a country! 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 209 


It s immense! just spilling over with energy 
and fun! Ever see a gander-pulling? Great 
sport, Pentie. I was telling one of these 
bloody Englishmen about it out in Indiana, 
and he tried to tell me it was vulgar. Know 
what I did to him?” 

“I’m sure I haven’t the slightest idea.” 

“Threw him out the stagecoach window! 
No room in this country for supercilious travel¬ 
lers from across the water. We’re casting off 
all influence from Europe, to lead our own 
life. Good-bye, Old World! Good-bye, aris¬ 
tocracy, all class distinctions!” 

“And good-bye to culture, too,” sneered 
Pentland. 

“Culture!” replied Galloway, putting his 
feet on a chair. “There you go again, always 
ranting of culture. What the devil do we want 
of her sterile virtue, anyhow?” 

“You apparently want nothing of it.” 

“Well, I don’t want much. I had enough 
of it at mother’s knee, and so has America.” 

“Brother,” observed Mrs. Pentland firmly, 
“your enthusiasm is carrying you too far. 
Culture is indispensable. I won’t defend an 
aristocracy that holds itself aloof from life, 




210 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


but history and common observation combine 
to tell us that it is the upper classes which 
have always been the custodians of culture.” 

Galloway laughed shortly, 

“Well, sis, you know more about history 
than I do, but I say this: a culture which is 
bound up with aristocracy must go. It’s had 
its time; now to see it decay.” 

“You’ll see that very speedily,” muttered 
Pentland, nervously hitching his shoulders. 
“This backwoods fellow Jackson is the great¬ 
est disintegrating force of the times.” 

“Then hooray for him!” cried Galloway. 
“Disintegration? let it come! Confound it, 
it must come, for there’s got to be tearing 
down before there can be building up.” 

“I doubt the building up, but the tearing 
down is perfectly apparent. Your America is 
casting off the very graces of civilization.” 

“Can’t be helped. In the wilderness man 
has got to lose his decorations and flourishes. 
He must be bold, direct, slough off the chains 
of custom, likewise abandon and crush down 
the formality of the parlor, all of fashion’s 
silliness, all fine arts and dainty affectations. 
Such things are only tinsel, academic niceties, 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 211 


luxurious sweetmeats fit for pale girls and 
worn-out gentlemen,—there’s nothing in it for 
young hot manly blood on plain and moun¬ 
tain. On the frontier manners are simple and 
natural and speech is justifiably rude. Book¬ 
ish talk they choke off tight, without apology. 
Amo amas , amat , what’s the good of all dead 
Latin? Let the eye turn from the printed 
page to the plough! Jerk the imagination 
away from dinner menus and put it to build¬ 
ing roads! Idealism, I tell you, can express 
itself in practical as well as impractical 
ways, and there lies the forte of the American 
spirit!” 

“That is a very interesting suggestion,” said 
Mrs. Pentland quickly. 

“Chaos!” cried her husband. “You’re 
advocating chaos, Edward, a return to bar¬ 
barism, a life without a single guiding prin¬ 
ciple. What plan is all this bred to?” 

“Cursed if I know,” chuckled Galloway, 
“but who cares? What do ye want a plan 
for? Life is life, that’s all. It’s change and 
growth this way and that, and the very fun 
of watching it lies in never knowing what’s 
ahead. Man is the child of the earth! that’s 




212 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 

what the West is discovering—with all kinds 
of experiment to follow. An end will evolve 

some time, somehow, some way. 

maybe! Meanwhile the mess is seething. 

“A dangerous situation,” growled Pentland. 

But Galloway laughed and snapped his 
fingers at him, 

“The grand and glorious West, ra la la la! 
where there is room to swing full stride! and 
fresh materials to work upon! where man is 
taught by the very earth under his feet to rely, 
not on musty antiquated models, no! by damn, 
but on his inner self! Thus does he become 
original and self-reliant, a thing straight 
standing, not a parasite, or a cripple either. 
Say! you two stick here if you like, stay in 
your old brick shell,—I’m for the times and 
for the West, though I must say I’d like it 
better if the old folks had left a little more. 
Travelling takes money.” 

Mrs. Pentland winced. 

“Edward,” said she, “you speak lightly.” 

“Do I? Well, I’m sorry and all that, but 
why mourn forever, sister? They’ve gone, 
passing through Nature to eternity, as some 
wag has it. Life! that’s what I’m intent upon, 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 213 


not death. I say, Pentie, what chance of a 
small loan to carry me on my way?” 

“Any amount you like.” 

“Good! Well, sis, don’t look so pained. 
What’s up now?” 

“Brother, you’ve changed.” 

“Pooh!” and he pulled out another cigar. 
“You only think so because you’ve been 
cooped up here with Pentie so long. The 
two of you are getting to be a pair of old 
women. I’ll wager your children will be all 
girls.” 

“Brother!” 

“By the way,” he pursued, “how comes it 
you have no children of any sort or descrip¬ 
tion?” 

Pentland had risen, 

“Edward, I really must ask you to confine 
yourself to the language of a gentleman when 
you are in the presence of my wife.” 

Galloway laughed, 

“Well, well, I’m off to-morrow, so don’t 
fuss. You folks are too much for me, and I 
seem to be too much for you.” 




214 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


III 

To-morrow came, and Edward Galloway 
packed his scant belongings. In the after¬ 
noon they walked with him to the wharf, where 
he had engaged passage on a boat down the 
Ohio. Tossing his satchel over the rail of the 
vessel he kissed his sister and shook hands 
with Pentland, 

“Well, here we are. Life is one parting 
after another, so we’ve got to get used to it. 
Don’t cry, little sis. I’m a bad egg, but you’ll 
be proud of me yet. Out West somewhere I’ll 
get the world by the tail and twist it till it roars 
out praise for Edward Galloway.” 

She began to laugh through her tears, at 
which he pinched her cheek and went on, 

“Meanwhile, don’t forget the children. 
They say they’re a great comfort; I don’t know 
as to that, but the country needs new blood 
and new life, so get busy. Ha! there’s the 
whistle! Well, good-bye, folks! Good-bye! 
Good-bye!” 

He sprang up the gangplank, and as they 
stood waving their handkerchiefs to him, the 
vessel slipped away and down the river, gilded 
now by the setting sun. 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 215 


With trembling lips Mrs. Pentland turned 
to her husband and silently took his arm. 
They walked slowly homeward through the 
twilight. 

66 Why so quiet, dear?” she murmured. 

“I was thinking of his vulgar allusions. 
Perhaps you wish that.that.” 

“It would make me very happy,” was her 
low and tremulous reply, “but God has not 
seen fit to bless us.” 

“Bless us?” 

She turned to him with an imploring 
gesture, 

“Oh Arthur! why is it that you have so 
little liking for children?” 

“I hardly know. It must be because I can¬ 
not bear to think of any one else possessing 
even a part of your heart. If we had a child 
you would love me less.” 

“Silly boy, I should love you just as much 
as I do now—more, in fact.” 

“How could that be? If you had a child 
to care for, you would have to divide your love 
between us, and I’d be the loser.” 

“Not at all, for the greater the demands 
upon my heart, the more love it would gener- 






216 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


ate. Love grows and grows, dear, in propor¬ 
tion as it’s needed. There’s no end to it. 
Don’t you feel that way, too?” 

“That’s very strange mathematics,” he par¬ 
ried. “I don’t understand it, and I do not like 
it. I don’t want a child. I want you all to 
myself. I could never share you with another. 
Don’t be offended, Laura. Why, you can 
mother me? Won’t that do?” 

She put away her handkerchief and drew 
her lips into a smile. 

“Of course it will,” she whispered. “Of 
course, of course. Every man is something 

of a big boy to his wife, and when I. 

Yes, Arthur, you shall be both husband and 
son to me.” 

Pentland squeezed her hand, 

“There! I’m content again. Oh Laura, 
you’re everything to me, everything. Other 
people are so neutral and uninteresting; they 
irritate me when we are with them. I’m on 
tenterhooks until I have you all to myself 
again. I can’t account for it in any other 
way than that you, and you alone, are neces¬ 
sary to my complete happiness. I’m glad 
Edward’s gone, aren’t you?” 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 217 


“Certainly not.although it was 

best that he go.” 

“He was so upsetting. Did you notice how 
atrocious his accent had become? And the 
idea of sneering at the life I lead. He thought 
it quite absurd, apparently. But you don’t, 
do you?” 

For a moment she walked on in thoughtful 
silence, then answered firmly, gravely, 

“Each of us must lead his own life. 

and each of us must bear the responsibility for 
it. It is impossible to make an adult over into 
another mould. That is why I am willing to 
see Edward go away, and that is why I am 
willing to see you stay here in Pittsburgh. 
It is my place to care for you, Arthur, and to 
affect your course by example and suggestion, 
but it is not my place to make your decisions 
for you. If in your mature judgment this is 
the kind of a life you wish to lead, that settles 
it.” 

“Well, it is. Your brother is welcome to 
his adventures among the barbarians; for my 
part, I prefer the amenities of civilization. 
Gracious! why do they make that noise?” 

“It’s the whistle at the ironworks,” she 





213 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


explained, “calling the night shift to work.” 

They had reached their own gate, but 
instead of passing on through, Pentland halted 
to turn and gaze back through the gathering 
dusk. 

“Calling the night shift to work,” he mut¬ 
tered. “Ah yes! calling them to bring more 
coal to build more flames and make more 
smoke, calling them to sweat and toil and dirty 
themselves and—” 

“Let us go inside, since it irritates you.” 

“But it’s all so disgusting! This thing 
called Industry is an octopus, and it’s advanc¬ 
ing upon us. Why, when I was a boy I used to 
think we lived a long way from the village, 
but now we have neighbors within a stone’s 
throw.” 

“Won’t you come in, dear?” 

He seized the gate and swung it wide, 

“Yes, Laura, I’ll come in! Furthermore, 
I’ll stay in.” 

IV 

And he did. The days went by, the weeks 
went by, the months went by, and still he 
stayed indoors, content with his beloved and 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 219 


all-sufficing wife, scarcely peeping through the 
windows at the town outside. He retired into 
his house and said it was his castle, etc. etc. 
Ah! how nice. And now for a comfortable 
chair, a foot rest, a head rest, now for the 
verses of Pope, which the queen of the castle 
reads aloud so charmingly— 

“Gracious! why do they make that noise?” 

“It’s a mass meeting,” she explained, and 
put the book aside. “Haven’t you read about 
it in the papers?” 

He had not. What kind of a mass meeting, 
to set up such a racket? Sounded as if the 
democrats were sacking the town. 

“It’s in front of Groot’s saloon,” said Mrs. 
Pentland. “A temperance meeting. The 
women are singing hymns.” 

What! Women in the street! Singing 
hymns in front of a saloon! Has the sex cast 
off its sense of decency altogether? Great 
Heaven, what next? 

What next? A violent knock at the door: 
a hard-faced something-in-skirts to see Mr. 
Pentland, and will not be denied. Mr. Pent- 
land comes, and the temperance worker goes. 
That’s the end of that, thinks he, but—doesn’t 




220 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


Pentland know that martyrs thrive when 
wicked folks resist ’em? The temperance 
worker never comes back, oh very true, but 
she has a sister crusader, one battling for the 
right of man to be free of human bondage, 
and it is reported to her that the black serv¬ 
ants up yonder in the brick house—for shame 
even to say it—they’re slaves! Aha! grouchy 
aristocrat, clog on the wheels of progress, 
there’s an abolitionist society in this place! 
We’re whispering of your meanness—we 
approach—we knock—we hereby inform you 
that you are holding your slaves in defiance 
of the laws of Pennsyl— 

He slammed the door, factus homo did, and 
they retired, but the Cause of Right has many 
weapons, as six days later Pentland learned: 
his negro gardener (the one who’d been so deft 
with pruning knife and spade) had run away, 
persuaded to it by the abolitionists. The 
master strode down town, to the office of the 
Gazette . He said something about an adver¬ 
tisement for the runaway. The editor shook 
his head; it was now his paper’s policy not 
to help catch fugitive blacks. 

“You’re mad,” growled Pentland. “Mad, 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 221 


utterly mad! Beware of this folly, this move¬ 
ment to free the niggers—it’ll lead to anarchy! 
Ha! you’ll be advocating the suffrage for them 
next!” 

The editor burst into a roar of laughter. 

Pentland went home to tell his wife all 
about it. 


V 

“But we need that black scoundrel to care 
for the grounds.” 

“Now, Arthur dear, please. Of course it’s 
too bad to lose him, but we can easily hire 
some one for the purpose.” 

“I’ll not hire a black man! I’ll not toler¬ 
ate the airs these free niggers put on.” 

“Then a white man.” 

“A white man! Hire one of those apish 
foreigners! Why, Laura, they’re asking a dol¬ 
lar a day for unskilled labor! I can remember 
when the same kind of work was done for 
fifty cents!” 

“But we can afford it, can’t we?” 

“Certainly! I could afford to pay a man 
five dollars a day, but that’s not the point. It 




222 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


is the principle of the thing. Oh the whole 
situation is intolerable!” 

She did not say a word to this, but Pent- 
land found her silence eloquent, 

“Laura!” 

“Yes?” 

“I realize that all this complaining doesn’t 
enhance me in your eyes. I’m sorry, dear, 
believe me.” 

Again a little silence, and Pentland trem¬ 
bled. A hunted look came to his pale gray 
eyes,—they seemed to be two pools of rest¬ 
less and uncertain cloudiness, inchoate stuff 
from which gleamed hints of what was what. 

“Oh I know I’m not what I ought to be!” 
he cried out, his chin no longer obstinate. “I 
know it, dear, I know it. What is it that 
makes me act so? Somehow I’ve lost the 
power to be enthusiastic, and what is worse 
I seem to hate all change, all adjustment, even 
growth. I disparage the present as a matter 
of course, and cling to the past with a grip 
I never knew I had. Why is it, Laura? Tell 
me, I beg of you.” 

“I do not know.” 

“But there’s something wrong with me, else 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 223 


I’d not fret and fume so. Can’t you tell me 
what it is, darling? You are so wise; you have 
such understanding.” 

With calm brown steadfast eyes she gazed 
upon him, and in a little while, said gravely, 

“I don’t know where your trouble lies, 
Arthur, but since you press me, I’ll answer as 
best I can.I suspect that your dis¬ 

content is due to the fact that your love is 
not great enough.” 

66 Why Laura! how can you say that? I 
adore you!” 

“Ah! I’m afraid that is just it. You adore 
me , which is very wrong. I am nothing but 
a very imperfect human being, and while I 
am grateful for your affection, I wish you 
could send your love not only upon me, but 
beyond me, out into the world, to all things 
and to all living creatures.” 

He gazed at her with troubled eyes, 

“I’m afraid you are dealing in vagaries.” 

Mrs. Pentland rose to her feet and walked 
thoughtfully across the room, to stand beside 
his chair. 

“Perhaps I am,” she said, with sober hesi¬ 
tation, “and yet the older I grow the more I 





224 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


suspect that love in a broad and curiously 
impersonal sense is the source of understand¬ 
ing, and the source of true happiness, also. It 
seems to me that it might penetrate riddles 
which the intellect cannot solve, smooth away 
apparent contradictions, and bring clarity 
where there has been confusion. I wonder if 
this sort of love isn’t a pair of spectacles which 
God offers us, in order that we may see things 
in their proper light, and hence move in har¬ 
mony with Nature and our fellow men?” 

“Now you are trying to convert me,” and 
he shook his head disconsolately. 

“Then I must say no more,” she answered 
quickly. “Religion is a matter of private 
belief, not argument. Besides, my own ideas 
on the subject are still too indefinite for me 
to presume to preach. Each of us, you know, 
must work out his own problems largely by 
himself.” 

Suddenly Pentland buried his face in his 
hands, groaning, 

“God help me, Laura, I don’t understand 
it. The words are simple, but they have no 
meaning for me. They beat upon a closed 
door.” 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 225 


She touched his hair with her soft hand, 

“Never mind.the door will open 

.some day.some day.” 

VI 

Some day, no doubt, no doubt, but not that 
day, nor yet that week nor month nor year. 
Curious about these closed doors, for one can 
never tell from looking at them if they are 
merely latched, or locked, and if the latter,— 
well, where’s the key? Can it be that it is 
lost? If not, who’s got it? Curious, too, that 
when one looks upon a door that’s closed, 
one never knows what lies behind it: vacuum 
or turmoil, which? We never know, and 
sometimes just as we are thinking that nothing 
is going on inside, the thing bursts open and 
shows that very act to be, not a single and 
eruptive push, but the head and shoulders of 
a body long building up in secret. Bravo! 
there’s a thought for you, an American 
thought, too, and if you think its joints a 
little loose, here’s another: 

Time has a way of passing! Let us reflect 
on that, and ponder this, also, that in some 
deep mysterious way one year is followed by 






226 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


another! On this we’ll base an argument, 
viz., that although there was a time when it 
was 1834, that year was pushed into the back¬ 
ground by another, and that by still another, 
until all of the thirties went away, and the 
new young bright-faced forties came, and 
began to pass, passing swiftly for happy Laura 
Pentland, passing dully for her husband, but 
passing! passing for them both. 

But enough of this! Not logic, but imagi¬ 
nation, that’s what we want, so fancy, now, a 
day of deep blue sky and gusty wind and 
great big dumpling clouds. They drift before 
the sun and throw sudden shadows down upon 
the earth, and then they move on and let the 
world bask in the warmth again,—more clouds 
will come along a little later. A restless day, 
a restless man, twisting in his chair. Hear 
him mutter, 

66 Won’t you play for me, Laura?” 

She rose and went to the harpischord, 

66 Well, Your Highness, what shall it be?” 

A selection from Scarlatti. 

Very well, and after that, at his request, 
a song from Handel, entitled 

Ask if yon damask rose be fair . 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 227 


This finished, she looked over toward him, 
and seeing that he was lying back in the chair 
with his eyes closed and his features relaxed, 
she stole from the room. 

Quiet Pentland.presently his eyes 

opened. He half turned toward the window, 
murmuring, 

“Is that you, Laura?” 

No answer. 

He jerked around and saw that he was 
alone. With a loud cry he sprang to his feet, 
trembling violently. 

His wife came hurrying into the room, 

“Arthur dear, what is the trouble?” 

He embraced her desperately, his voice con¬ 
fused and infantile, 

“Laura dearest! Oh how strange. 

Was I asleep or awake? I saw a shadow out 
of the corner of my eye. I thought it was 
you. I spoke, and it vanished. Strange. 
Laura, tell me, could a shadow be blond?” 

She gazed at him, quizzical, 

“Well, Arthur, I’ve heard of all sorts of 
shadows, but never of blond ones. They are 
usually black, you know. Or at least dark,” 
she added with a smile. 





228 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“This one was blond,” he muttered. “It 
moved toward me as if it were.a 


man.a large man, with broad shoul¬ 
ders.How very very strange.” 


“I’m sure it must have been a dream. Don’t 

tremble so, Arthur. Sit down.that’s 

a good boy.” 

“Stay with me! Don’t leave me alone 
again.” 

Very well. 

“Read to me,” he pleaded. “Anything to 
keep me from thinking.” 

She walked to the bookshelves, 

“What would you like? Something new?” 

“No. I detest these young scribblers. Old 
books are best.” 

“An old book, then. What shall it be?” 

He pondered, grumbled, couldn’t say. 

Mrs. Pentland shrugged her shoulders, 

“Neither an old book nor a new one! Then 
what shall I read you? The newspaper?” 

“Well,” he answered heavily, “I suppose 
that is better than nothing.” 

Thus encouraged, she provided herself with 
a number of recent newspapers and sat down 
at his feet, leaning against his knees and read- 









TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 229 


ing aloud snatches of things which she thought 
might interest him, thus: 

“Oh listen! A new invention, called the 
daguerreotype, ‘an expression of the photo¬ 
graphic art, whereby a facsimile likeness of 
the human countenance, or other objects, may 
be transferred to a permanent record.’ 
Wouldn’t that be curious?” 

“Just another fad. First it’s mesmerism, 
then it’s phrenology, and now this. Any¬ 
thing to take up the attention of the mob.” 

“I see by the paper,” she continued bravely, 
“that Graham & Bolles are to have a larger 
store building. They’re going to put in a 
complete supply of new writing materials.” 

66 New writing materials, eh? I’d be grate¬ 
ful to them for some of the old ones! I went 
in there last month for some quills, and they 
hadn’t any. Tried to make me buy those 
detestable newfangled steel pens. I wouldn’t 
have them, of course.” 

“Here is an interesting account,” she went 
on. “A race between a trotting horse and 

a steam railway train. They.they 

started.” 

At this point she was obliged to put down 





230 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


the paper, explaining that her eyes had filled 
with water. 

“Oh, your poor eyes!” murmured her hus¬ 
band, and bent over to kiss them with an 
impulsive tenderness. “Why have they been 
troubling you lately? Is anything wrong with 
them?” 

“Nothing,” she answered quietly, “except 
that Mother’s trouble has appeared in me. But 
they are rested now,—perhaps I can read on.” 

“You shall not!” cried Pentland passion¬ 
ately, and took up the paper. “I am a selfish 
brute to let you strain your eyes. You listen; 
I’ll read.” 

He did, reading calmly for half an hour, 
stroking her hair and asking in the boyish and 
affectionate way he sometimes had, how were 
her eyes,—but presently another cloud came 
drifting up, shut off the sunlight, 

“My dear Laura, listen to this! Next 
autumn our fair city may have the honor— 
imagine—of entertaining the lady members 
—lady members, mind you—of a convention 
designed to plan and promote a Woman’s 
Rights Movement! Did you ever hear of any¬ 
thing so ridiculous?” 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 231 


Silence. 

“And this!” he resumed. “Great Heaven, 
what is the world coming to? 6 We are in¬ 
formed by the arbiters and dictators of fashion 
that the practice of eating with one’s knife is 
no longer de bon ton , such maneuvering being, 
not only dangerous to the sides of the mouth, 
but also repugnant to the eye of the spectator, 
as well as out of accord with the mandates of 
good breeding.’ ” 

With a growl he threw down the paper, 

“Well, of all the ridiculous nonsense! Not 
good form to eat with one’s knife? Why, I’ve 
eaten with my knife all my life, just as my 
mother did, and my grandfather, too, and 
every other person of breeding. And now 
these vulgar upstarts presume to tell me to 
change! I’ll not do it, Laura. I say I’ll not! 
Improper to eat with one’s knife! 0 Heaven!” 

VII 

They say time is a cure for everything, but 
if the shadows marching round the sundial 
showed any change in Arthur Pentland, it was 
that it grew worse, not better. Fretful baffled 
man, he went on languishing in the old brick 




232 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


house, wrapped in gloomy thoughts from 
which only his wife had the power to rouse 
him. 

He went out very little: winter was too cold 
and wet, spring too rainy and muddy, summer 
too hot and dirty, autumn—gr-r-r, not so bad; 
and when his wife redoubled her efforts, and 
talked of a certain hill, and said it would be 
good exercise to climb it, he consented list¬ 
lessly. 

They set out.got to the top, and 

there Mrs. Pentland sank down to rest. 

When her breath came back, she broke out 

gaily, 

“Isn’t this delightful? You used to pick 
wild flowers here when you were a boy, didn’t 
you Arthur?” 

“Yes, but where are the wild flowers now? 
There are none to be seen on Flare’s Knob.” 

“Silly!” she laughed. “Did you expect 
wild flowers in October?” 

“No, I didn’t, but neither did I expect to 
see those ditches and ugly shanties down 
there.” 

She fell silent, while Pentland glared down 
the slope, 





TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 233 


“Just look at that detestable smoke. Don’t 
you find it outrageous?” and he turned to her 
in wonder. 

“I don’t find it pleasant, and yet I don’t 
mind it so much the last few years. The cur¬ 
tains and the linen soil easily, but then they 
can be washed, you know.” 

“No doubt they can, but the sky can’t, nor 
can the landscape. What a dirty, grimy, smoky 
place Pittsburgh is! Why, when I was a young¬ 
ster I used to play up and down the bank of the 
river yonder, rolling in the grass and imitating 
the wild turkeys. But now just look! Look 
at the rubbish they’ve put there! Ashes, bar¬ 
rels, whiskey bottles! The fine old forest 
trees killed out—rats and human vermin 
prowling the waterfront—birds leaving, and 
I don’t blame them. It’s a wonder the very 
rocks aren’t frightened off by this monster 
Industry!” 

Mrs. Pentland was gazing down upon the 
city thoughtfully, 

“Our industrial development has many un¬ 
pleasant features—” 

“It certainly has!” 

“—and yet it has a promising side.” 




234 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“The incessant multiplication of commodi¬ 
ties, I suppose!” 

She blew a bit of soot off his shoulder, 

“I was thinking of something else. If 
Edward was right, and man is the child of 
the earth.then all this preoccupa¬ 

tion with industry is serving to acquaint us 
with the conditions governing our spiritual as 
well as our social, growth.” 

“Social growth!” growled Pentland, gnaw¬ 
ing at his little black moustache. “Why, it 
is precisely industry and democracy, and all 
that sort of thing, which is destroying the 
cultivated classes. And Edward not only 
approved this destructive process, but actually 
sneered at culture in every form.” 

“He went too far. All impetuous, full- 
blooded people are apt to do that when they 
come in contact with a primitive environment, 
especially if it is unstable, too. Nevertheless, 
I am inclined to believe that much of his 
disregard for tradition is justified.” 

“What!” 

“There are worse things than attacks upon 
social caste, and worse things than disrespect 
for custom.” 





TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 235 


He wanted to know what they were. 

“Indifference to life is one,” was her slow 
and hesitating answer. “If aristocracy and 
social exclusiveness lead to triviality they are 
bad, or at least so I am coming to feel. If 
they lead to sloth they are worse. Arthur, 
I’ve been thinking a great deal about this 
matter, and I can’t help seeing promise in 
these toiling masses of humanity. They are 
alive, and valiant in their way. They’re sin¬ 
cere, and eager, too, even though they deal 
in earthly things. They certainly have the 
capacity for growth and progress, which is 
more than can be said of many of the members 
of our own class. On the whole, it is per¬ 
haps just as well that the expansion of demo¬ 
cratic life has destroyed the doctrine of the 
socially elect.” 

Pentland jerked around to stare at the calm 
but firm-lipped woman at his side. At last 
he found his tongue, 

“Nonsense! Why, these people are cattle! 
They lack education, vision, culture, manners, 
breeding itself!” 

“These things are not essential.” 

“Then what is essential?” he exploded. 




236 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Love of life, and the inner spirit that fires 
man to grow and develop and climb up and up 
and ever upward, even though slowly and 
blindly.” 

“I can’t see it!” 

“Very well,” she said, suddenly weary, 
“let’s not talk about it. After all, it’s not a 
matter for discussion, but for action, and by 
those who are younger than you and I. A new 
generation is coming along. We are about to 
pass into the audience to become mere spec¬ 
tators, while they stride on to the stage and 
take the active roles. We’re getting along 
in years, my dear.” 

“Eh?” 

She bent a tender smile upon him, 

“Of course. Time goes quickly, especially 
when one is happy. Why do you look at me 
like that, Arthur?” 

Pentland, low and gravely, 

“I hadn’t thought about it.didn’t 

realize the years were slipping away. I. . . . . 
I.” 

“What is it, dear?” she asked, for he was 
gazing at her with widening eyes. “Surely 
you are not afraid to grow old?” 







TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 237 


“Afraid!” he cried out in sudden startled 
triumph. “No! Great God in Heaven, I’m 
not afraid, either of old age or of death! 
Laura! there is no fear in me!” 

He seized her by the arm and gripped her 
so hard she flinched, and as she drew back 
she saw that his face was shaking with relief 
and joy, and tears were trickling down his 
cheeks. 

“I’m not afraid any more!” he panted. 
“How wonderful it is to be able to say that,— 
you’ll never know. How could you know? 
How could anyone know, unless he had lived 
with fear ever since his birth—obsessed by 
it—never free from it—oh what a nightmare 
it used to be!” 

“Arthur! Why have you never told me of 
this?” 

Pentland broke into hysterical laughter, 

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I don’t know! 
Ha ha ha ha ha!” He turned away from her, 

abruptly calm, “because.because it’s 

natural for a person to conceal shameful 
things, I suppose.” 

“But these morbid obsessions are very 
tenacious. Are you quite sure that your fear 




238 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


is gone away? I never dreamed it had a hold 
on you.” 

He kissed her hand and looked up earnestly, 

“Quite sure, my darling. Please don’t think 
me silly. I was startled when you spoke of 
our facing old age. You see, it used to be one 
of my chief terrors—growing old—but an 
instant after you spoke, I knew that what was 
once a horrible reality was now nothing but 
an empty sound. It has no more meaning 
for me, no more power over me. Without my 
knowing it, fear has left me, and I am free.” 

Again he kissed her hand and held it against 
his cheek, murmuring softly, speaking with a 
deep vibrating aspiration, 

“Fear has left me, and I am free! I am 
content to face old age, my dearest. Con¬ 
tent! oh more than that—I’m eager to grow 
old with you. I feel the strain of criticizing 
and condemning everything about me. I don’t 
want to fight the changes that time must bring. 
I want to shelve it all, ignore it, take it calmly, 
as you do, Laura. Sweetheart, we’ll go on 
through the years together, won’t we? 
hand in hand, you and I together, to¬ 
gether.” 





TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 239 


VIII 

Content to pass on down through middle 

life and yet.somehow the passing 

years bring him little peace. Round go the 
shadows of the sundial, up to the half century 
mark and beyond, but though he sits and reads 
De Senectute with well-bred smiles, he has no 
calmer view of life. He seems to be strug¬ 
gling with an unseen foe—a pair of horrors 
maybe, or three in one, or a single enemy with 
four branched heads,—at any rate there’s 
some inner hidden demon-stuff that he is 
wrestling with. Wrestles and pants and trem¬ 
bles, and declares himself the victor and yet 

.the vanquished one continues to 

fret him— 

“Gracious! why do they make that noise?” 

“The city is celebrating its first railroad,” 
said his wife. “Come dear, hand me my dark 
glasses and let’s step on to the porch and 
listen.” 

He pressed his lips together but obeyed, 
guiding the stumbling woman out to the porch. 
She sank into a chair and murmured, 

“It’s a great day for Pittsburgh.” 

“I’m sure I can’t enthuse over the railroad. 





240 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


It seems to me the place is messy enough as 
it is. Why, they claim the population is over 
eighty thousand, imagine! People are pour¬ 
ing in upon us from every direction. Every¬ 
thing is industry, industry, industry! The 
uses of leisure are ignored. Everything is 
forgotten except the wretched object of this 
incessant hurry. Only yesterday I was jostled 
at our very gate by an uncouth foreign-looking 
fellow—” 

He broke off to glare at a carriage passing 
along the street, 

“Look at that! Just look at it! Show and 
vulgar display in the very harness of the 
horses. Apparently a rich man who won’t let 
his neighbors forget it. What a madness this 
passion for wealth is getting to be! Ha! I 
was wrong when I said that democracy wants 
nothing of social classes, for having unseated 
the well-born, it’s setting up money as a cri¬ 
terion. We’ll soon have an aristocracy 
founded on coal and pork. I suppose this 
fellow is one of the forerunners.” 

Mrs. Pentland had shaded her eyes to study 
the passer-by, and now she spoke, 

“That’s Mr. Farnum. He lives two doors 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 241 


from us. They are strangers here, from New 
York, and rather than being vulgar upstarts, 
as you insinuate, they come from a very old 
and well-established family. You are unjust, 
Arthur.” 

A flush of intense mortification spread over 
his face. He bit his lip, 

“Forgive me, Laura. I was wrong to speak 
as I did. Truly, dear, I am sorry if I was 
unjust. No doubt they are very fine people, 
after all.” 

“The daughter is charming,” said she, with 
a clearing brow. “We were chatting at the 
gate the other morning. I liked her very 
much.” 

“Did you, really?” contrition vanishing. 
“Then I suppose you are secretly wishing to 
invite her here to see you! Yes, why don’t 
you? Do invite her!” 

She reached for his hand, 

“Why Arthur! how sweet of you! I’d be 

delighted, of course.But I thought 

you disliked young people?” 

“I? Not at all, not at all! Have her, by 
all means, and let her bring all of her young 
friends, too. You have altogether too much 




242 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


of me, I see that clearly. Do have them come, 
Laura. Really, I insist upon it!” 

IX 

She did have them come, making up little 
parties for them, asking them to the house 
informally, and loving it all. It was a happi¬ 
ness to sit and chat with her “new young 
friends,” as she called them, discussing in 
her tolerant way the giant woes and giant 
tribulations that beset their paths. They gave 
her their halting confidences, and got back in 
return her mellow wisdom and her love, an 
exchange which they found delightful. 
Wasn’t she charming? so full of fun, so genu¬ 
inely interested in everything. What a happi¬ 
ness to be near her, reading to her from her 
favorite books, or talking of the latest scien¬ 
tific theories, or merely sitting at her feet, 
content. 

Pentland? Well, he viewed it all with 
envy and astonishment. He struggled to make 
himself one of the party,—in vain, where¬ 
upon he thought to himself, how insufferable 
these young people are, their wit banal, their 
behavior coarse, their conversation tiresome 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 243 


beyond belief! He tried to use them as a 
factus homo should, yet now and then he 
simply had to let out a savage flash, and this 
illumining the secret cavern of his inner man, 
they took as a warning to beware. They bore 
with him because he was the husband of their 
friend, but—what a queer man he was—nerv¬ 
ous—always pacing to and fro—hating mir¬ 
rors—offering material hospitality but small 
love, a man who seemed to study what to say, 
which, when it was said, turned out to be 
nothing but a calculated phrase, warming the 
occasion far less than did the spontaneity of 
his wife. 

He longed for a chance to vent his spleen, 
—and found it. The evening had been warm 
and balmy, and it was late when they stepped 
out to the porch to tell their youthful guests 
good-night. The visitors went off down 
through the garden, passed out the gate, and 
disappeared in the darkness, laughing mer¬ 
rily. Pentland stiffened as he watched. He 
stood erect, his head thrown strongly back, the 
twisting of his features hidden by the black 
beard he now affected, even in the summer 
time, 




244 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Laura, those girls haven’t an escort. 
Doesn’t that strike you as highly improper?” 

“It would have been thought so in my 
youth,” she answered, “but nowadays it is 
considered proper I believe, or at least not 
improper. The times are freer, you know. 
They are very nice girls, Arthur.” 

“No doubt, but hardly modest. That 
Stevens girl was dressed in frightful taste.” 

“Fashions change. It seems peculiar to 
us, hut then we lack the viewpoint of the 
newer generation. They are no doubt right, 
and we wrong.” 

“Never! If I still have possession of my 
faculties, the young women of the day are 
immodest, unmannerly, and utterly vulgar. I 
am sorry, but I can’t find anything agreeable 
to say about your friend, Miss Stevens.” 

“Then you ought to be ashamed of your¬ 
self,” said Mrs. Pentland with forced play¬ 
fulness, “for she had several nice things to 
say about you. Why, she even said you look 
young enough to be my son! I was tremen¬ 
dously mortified,” she laughed. 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 245 


X 

An hour later Arthur Pentland was in his 
chamber, pacing up and down in his night 
clothes, feverishly up and down, until with 
sudden resolution he left the room and slipped 
along the hall to his wife’s apartment. Care¬ 
fully he opened the door, went in. The room 
was full of moonlight. He crept up to the 
bed and knelt to gaze upon her: she was 
asleep. 

Sleep! that curtain which as it draws its 
silent folds up over us, hides many things 
away and uncovers many more hid from our 
daylight sight,—and so with Laura Pentland. 
Calm gentle woman slumbering there so 
peacefully, to-night revealed in her what the 
waking hours had thus far kept back: the 
heralds of old age. Out over the pillow 
streamed her rich brown hair, and in it her 
husband saw a streak of silver, another and 
another. Her breathing was regular, quiet, 
strong, but in the features that he adored there 
was a curious flabbiness, a loss of fullness 
about the neck, a sagging. Subtle wrinkles 
creeping against the glory of her eyes, com¬ 
plexion fading, her skin robbed of the moist 




246 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


lubricity of youth, a dry and papery skin 
exhaling a faint and subtle odor, a strange 
odor, imperceptible, yet—bend lower, Pent- 
land. 

Slyly bending over her he brought his black 
face closer. Black face? Black face, for if 
there was a pallor lurking in his features, it 
did not show: his tight thick beard lay upon 
him as a mask, a dark intense black curtain 
over which his pale eyes showed colorless as 
glass. He gazed upon her, sniffing suspi¬ 
ciously, and then he seemed to be convinced: 
his hairy lips fell open with a gasp, and she 
awoke,—not starting up with shrieking, not 
frightened, simply opening wide her eyes, 
calmly looking up, as if she’d known, before 
she woke, just who it was. She smiled, lifted 
a white hand to his trembling face, 

“Lonely, dear?” 

“Yes! May I come in with you?” 

“Of course,” and she made room for him. 

He sprang into bed, seized her in his arms. 

“What a boy you are,” she murmured 
fondly. 

He tensed a little, 

“Don’t say that. Don’t call me a boy.” 




TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 247 


“Why not?” laughing faintly. “You are 
a boy, and you know you are, snuggling 
against me like this, until you ’most crowd me 
out of bed.” 

He made no answer, only hugged her tight, 
his lips against her breast, his breathing 

labored and irregular.it grew gentler. 

Sleep stole upon him.gradually his 

arms relaxed. She turned just a little: his 
hand fell from her, and he awoke and gave 
a cry. 

“What is it, Arthur?” 

“You got out of my arms. I want you 
close. I want you to sleep tight in my 
arms.” 

He was trembling. 

“Arthur, what is troubling you?” 

“Why.why.it is the noise 

from the street.” 

“I don’t hear anything. I think it must be 
gone now.” 

“Laura.” 

“Yes?” 

“Nothing can separate us, can it?” 

“Separate us ? What makes you say that ?” 

“I hardly know,” he answered, in a halting 







248 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


voice, “but sometimes I feel there is a barrier 
between us, a kind of invisible wall—like glass 
—which pushes us apart and makes me feel 

so queer.as if my feet were beating 

time, preparing to march. But it’s nonsense,” 
he added strongly, “nonsense, I say. I beg 
your pardon for bothering you when you’re 
sleepy. Forget my foolish words.” 

She kissed him thickly, and drifted back to 
slumber, murmuring, 

“Dear boy.” 

She slept, but he did not. Stiffly he lay 
there beside her, staring at the ceiling over¬ 
head, and presently his eyes grew furtive, 
darting from side to side like hunted things. 
His lips were dry, his breathing so oppressed 
it seemed as if an invisible and tremendous 
weight had settled upon his breast. 

He twitched and twitched.sat up. 

Stealthily he got out of bed. With careful 
steps he passed across the chamber, with cun¬ 
ning fingers he lit a candle. Holding it up to 
the looking glass he gazed at his reflection, 
staring long and searchingly, and as he stood 
there peering, pondering, there came into his 
eyes a creeping horror, horror and despair, 





TIME DISPLACES HIS WIFE 249 

horror and despair and bitter sick acknowledg- 
ment. 

“0 God,” he cried out hoarsely, “it’s true, 
it’s true! I can’t doubt it any longer. He 
told me we were partners in a trick, but he 
lied! He slipped away and I’m left here to 
hold the sack alone! 0 you fiend, I curse you, 
Richard Bacon!” 

Mrs. Pentland awoke with a start, 

“Arthur! what is wrong? Why are you 
cursing Richard Bacon?” 

He stumbled to her, muttering, 

“I.I.I don’t know, Laura, 

I don’t know. I didn’t know what I was say- 
ing.” 

She was blinking drowsily, 

“Was it a nightmare?” 

“Yes,” he moaned, and sank into her arms, 
“yes, a nightmare.” 














Oh For A Charm Against 
The Fleshless One! 

















I 


And now the sundial was marking the decay 
of Laura Pentland, clearly marking it, as 
slowly, steadily, the persistent shadows went 
round and round. Spring, summer, autumn 
and winter passed in fleet succession, swung 
round and came again, once more, again, 
again, till age, grown bolder with the years, no 
longer lurked in ambush, a sly foe full of hesi¬ 
tating stealth; it left off its mask: she who had 
once stood straight began to stoop a little, just 
a little, and she who in the long ago had 
walked with sprightly step was shuffling more 
and more: it seemed as though her feet were 
growing independent of her will. 

Let us philosophize and say that life’s a 
coin, and has two sides. I’ve shown you one, 
now see the other: good humor when exhaus¬ 
tion welled up more quickly than it used to, 
close-mouthed patience when in pain, serenity 
like a mantle of grace out of Heaven, and 
above all, this: a divine alchemy at work 
within her, making memory sweet and affec- 
253 


254 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


tions deeper and broader, smoothing over the 
raw thrusts of experience, and giving her the 
fortitude to bear the woe of dwindling sight. 
She bore it calmly, and when in showing Mrs. 
Carson to the door one evening she stumbled 
over a chair and almost fell, she said very 
simply, 

“I’m afraid I’m getting awkward.” 

“Your candles are too dim,” said the visitor. 
“You ought to outfit with these new gas lamps. 
They’re wonderful, honestly.” 

Mrs. Pentland smiled, 

“I’ve heard they’re very nice, but we’re 
fond of candles.” 

The caller halted on the threshold, 

“Well, I have the rheumatiz pretty bad 
when it’s wet, but as I says to Frank the other 
day, us watchin’ you putterin’ around the 
garden, it must be terrible not to see good.” 

“It is inconvenient,” answered one who 
could not keep from wincing just a little, “but 
the evening of life brings its own lamps. One 
light goes, another comes,—it is the will of 
the Lord. I shall be content to lose my physi¬ 
cal sight if my spiritual vision will only 
clarify.” 




OH FOR A CHARM 


255 


“Good-night,” snapped the visitor, and 
flounced out. 

“Good-night, Mrs. Carson. I’m sorry.” 

She closed the door and went slowly back 
to the living room and settled into a chair. 

Silence. 

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “I thought you were 
upstairs.” 

“I came down again when I heard Mrs. 
Carson at the door.” 

Silence. 

“You are trembling, Arthur. What is it?” 

She heard him draw in his breath with a 
hiss, and 

“What is it? The toothache! I’m half 
crazy with it! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” 

She blinked through her glasses at him, and 
when he had left off with his wild laughter, 
she said with troubled firmness, 

“My dear, the longer I live with you the 
less I understand you. You seem to have 
always had a strange bent, but the last few 
years have intensified it until I hardly know 
what to think.” 

“Nonsense.” 

“Sometimes I feel that you have a secret 




256 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


from me. Be frank, my dear. Tell me truly, 
is it your old obsession of Fear?” 

“Fear?” he repeated, as if startled, sur¬ 
prised. “Fear?” 

“Yes. You know that fear of old age and 
death used to haunt you. I’ve been wonder- 

• _ 99 

ing 

He broke in with a harsh laugh, 

“Don’t wonder! As my dear dear mother 
used to say, the way to be happy is to think of 
happy things, and ignore all else. I have no 
fear of old age and death, none whatever. 
Why should I? I tell you it has gone from 
me completely.” 

“I’m glad. It is the hand of God.” 

“The hand of God!” his passionate voice 
whipped back at her. “I see no evidence of 
the hand of God in my life,—rather the hand 
of Satan.” 

His wife, troubled again, 

“Now why do you say that?” 

“Oh for no reason at all. Come, let’s talk 
of something else. I insist. Tell me about 
old Mrs. Carson. What did she want?” 

“Money.” 

“Money?” 




OH FOR A CHARM 


257 


It seems that the churches want to hire a 
lecturer to defend the Bible against ration¬ 
alism.” 

She heard him pacing up and down with 
nervous feet, but had no further words from 
him until he came back to the subject with an 
abrupt and falsified interest in his voice, 

“Oh yes, yes. She wanted money, did she? 
Well, how much did you give her?” 

“Not a cent.” 

“What! you didn’t give her any money? 
Well, well, but.aren’t you a per¬ 

fectly good church member?” 

“I belong to the church, but the older I 
grow the less I am inclined to insist upon 
all of the tenets of revealed religion.” 

Pentland intrigued, no longer needing to 
pretend, 

“So you side with those who wish to make 
religion square with reason?” 

“Not at all. I do consider it ridiculous and 
a waste of time to defend the literal interpre¬ 
tation of the Scriptures, since this affects not 
spirit but religious forms; however, I do not 
side with rationalism, since reason can never 
be more than a purblind guide in spiritual 





258 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


matters. The whole argument is trivial and 
misleading, because it leaves the crux un¬ 
touched and harps on what is not essential.” 

“Then what is essential?” and Pentland 
stopped short and turned to hear her answer. 

“Love of life, and the inner spirit that fires 
man to grow and develop and climb up and 
ever upward, even though slowly and blindly.” 

“But this is treason to your inherited 
faith!” 

She smiled wanly, 

“If so, I fear I shall have to reorganize that 
faith, for the old doctrine of supernatural 
rewards and punishments no longer holds me. 
Arthur, I am coming to feel that the whole 
notion of the heavenly elect is ridiculous. I 
do not at all like the smug, self-righteous atti¬ 
tude which so many of our ‘Christians’ assume. 
It might be just as well if rationalism and 
science were to expand religious concepts to 
the point of breaking down the theory of the 
heavenly elect.” 

A bitter laugh from Pentland. 

“A double movement!” he cried. “De¬ 
mocracy has destroyed the theory of the 
socially elect, and now the further expansion 




OH FOR A CHARM 


259 


of man’s wonderful brain is to destroy the 
doctrine of the heavenly elect!” 

Silence. 

“That is a very interesting suggestion,” said 
Mrs. Pentland slowly. 


II 

As a rule Pentland could not bear to be 
away from his wife, but there came a time 
when he craftily and persistently avoided her. 
If she were in the garden he stayed in the 
house, if she were upstairs he found some 
excuse to be downstairs, if he saw her stum¬ 
bling along the hall to her favorite chair be¬ 
side the fire he’d motion a servant to help 
her,—and take himself off. He avoided her, 
but though he sighed with relief when he was 
by himself, solitude brought him no peace, in 
fact it was when he was alone that restlessness 
came out upon him most strongly. 

Alone in his room one day, he fell to pacing 
back and forth, now pausing to listen to his 
wife moving about below, now looking out 
the window as if expecting a visitor, but 
always going on with his nervous pacing back 
and forth, fingering his black beard, nervous 




260 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


pacing back and forth, back—all at once he 
sat down at his desk, seized a pen and sheet 
of foolscap, and wrote, 

“To clear up my thought I am going to—” 
He stopped, gazed about, an agony of reso¬ 
lution in his gray eyes. At the farther end of 
the room stood a highboy. He went to it, 
opened a drawer, and took out a pistol. Click! 
it was loaded. Returning to the desk he sat 
down, placed the pistol at his elbow, scratched 
out what he had written, and began again, 
writing in a jerky bold hand, 

“Unity and variety can exist together, but 
there must be concord among the elements 
which are various. 

“A human body is a unity, but if a man has 
an aching tooth growing down out of the roof 
of his mouth, this destroys the unity of the 
entire body. The tooth is ridiculously out of 
place. It is of no use, either to the rest of 
the body or to itself. It ought to be drawn. 

“Man himself is nothing but an anomalous 
tooth, if he is out of harmony with what would 
otherwise be concord. The theme of life, its 
setting, its many characters, their manifold 
activities, all this constitutes a unified pageant, 




OH FOR A CHARM 


261 


save for the man who grows down through the 
roof of it all as a tooth which is out of place. 

6 ‘This human tooth ought to exercise intel¬ 
ligence. He ought to stop insisting that be¬ 
cause he himself is nothing but a vessel of 
pain, all the variety about him is discord. 
Perhaps it is all concord, all unity, and he 
alone is the jar and jangle. 

“This is true. 

“Such a tooth must be drawn, partly in 
self-defence, partly in defence of the peace of 
the other actor in the human play. The sooner 
this is done the better, for whereas time helps 
the legitimate players to grow and mould 
themselves toward a firmer unity, the intru¬ 
siveness of the anomalous one can only become 
more pronounced and monstrous as time goes 
on. 

“It may be necessary, therefore, for man 
to turn dentist.” 

Having written this he threw down the quill, 
took up the pistol, and rose to his feet. Reso¬ 
lution surged into his face,—but quickly fled 
again. With a sudden loud groan he began 
to pace the floor, shaking his head from side 
to side, his lips trembling. Again he looked 




262 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


oat the window: no one to be seen. A moan 
broke from him, and he was on the point of 
putting down the weapon when footsteps 
sounded outside the door. He heard his wife 
calling to him. 

“Don’t come in,” he cried. 

“Arthur, are you there?” 

He clutched the pistol, screaming fran¬ 
tically, 

“Stay back! Go ’way!” 

The door opened and she came in, fumbling 
blindly, crying out in alarm, 

“What is the matter?” 

She saw him dimly, went toward him, 
seized his arm. At that moment there was an 
explosion. 

“Arthur!” she shrieked, and threw her 
arms about his neck, “what have you 
done?” 

The reply came slow and huskily, 

“I fired.at a man. He was at 

the window—a thief—he was trying to break 
in.” 

“But my goodness,” she gasped, and sank 
into a chair, “you mustn’t do things like that. 
You frightened me half to death. You might 




OH FOR A CHARM 


263 


have killed him. Horrible! Why did you 
do it?” 

Silence. 

Arthur! answer me!” 

“Please don’t ask questions. Don’t fuss, 
Laura.” 

III 

Round went the shadows of the sundial. 

A coolness sprang up between them, but 
when she sadly called his attention to it, Pent- 
land insisted that she was mistaken. He 
became very attentive, reading to her, adjust¬ 
ing her pillows, making pleasant little sur¬ 
prises for her, stroking her hair affectionately. 

The passing days gradually took the worry 
out of her face. She grew calm, gently silent, 
sinking little by little into a long long revery, 
musing the weeks away, a wasting shrivelling 
little figure of a woman. 

“Sometimes,” she murmured, “I think old 
age is the most glorious of all stages of exist¬ 
ence, don’t you, Arthur? It is so much more 
serene than youth. The view is so much more 
clear. It is like pursuing a road which comes 
out upon a hill, where we can look back with 




264 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


leisure and perspective, and weigh and judge 
experience as we never could when we were 
young. It is a calm and holy height that 
lets us look forward, too, enables us to sum 
up the past and use it as an aid in taking 
larger longer wider views of what lies ahead. 
And yet I wonder.” 

Silence. 

“I’m not satisfied, though,” she went on, 
in a groping voice. “Dear, would you mind 
reading to me from the Second Book of 
Timothy? There’s a passage I want very 
much to hear.” 

He got the Bible, opened it to the place 
she indicated, read, 

“The time of my departure is at hand. I 
have fought a good fight, I have finished my 
course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth 
there is laid up for me a crown of righteous¬ 
ness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, 
shall give me at that day—” 

“Ah!” she exclaimed, “how often I’ve 
pored over those words. And how often they 
seemed to be a staff, given to help me on my 
way up the ascent of the Delectable Moun¬ 
tain, and on toward the Pearly Gates! And 





OH FOR A CHARM 


265 


yet this promise brings me no comfort now. 
A life of vanity in a vale of tears, to be fol¬ 
lowed by an infinity of celestial rapture if 
we are good, such is the creed of my earlier 
life. How unreal it seems to me lately, and 
how incongruous and bizarre the connection 
between this world and the heaven of ortho¬ 
doxy!” 

Silence. 

“I wonder,” she continued, “if we ought 
not to suspect our traditional religion of a 

false view? Perhaps I’m wrong, but. 

doesn’t it degrade human life by failing to 
emphasize the values of this earthly world? 
If it does, it surely holds man back from his 
fullest development as a sentient human being. 
Whatever fixes our attention on heavenly joys 
and splendors certainly builds up in us a 
spiritual idea which is essentially weak and 
narrow. Narrow! that’s the worst of it, 
Arthur. The heavenly elect, by their very 
fixation upon Paradise, shut themselves out of 
Heaven!” 

“I don’t understand you,” said Pentland 
restlessly. 

She smiled a little, 





266 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Well, I don’t blame you. I don’t under¬ 
stand myself. The clarification which is tak¬ 
ing place in me is also a confusion, if you know 
what I mean. Perhaps it’s because tradition 
and custom build up unthinking habit, while 
the changes of our recent life breed a kind 
of chaos which attacks conformity in order to 
act as the forerunner of a new and better 
system. Do you understand me?” 

“No.” 

“It seems complicated, I suppose. But per¬ 
haps it’s very simple after all. Time will tell. 
At any rate, my fundamental notions of life 
and death are changing, and as they change 
they turn upon one another, like warriors in 
array of battle, an army of paradox and con¬ 
tradiction. I’m very weary, and yet the prom¬ 
ise of heaven’s peace seems such a sorry end 
to human life, a futile shameful end. This 
thing we call the death of the body puzzles 
me. My instinct tells me that life on the earth 
and life after death is of a single and unbroken 
piece, but.how can that be?” 

IV 

Confusion, then, was settling down upon 





OH FOR A CHARM 


267 


her, a cloud of doubt, a thick obscuring mist 
through which she struggled toward the dis¬ 
tant light, seeking to know the way that she 
should go,—and so of that broad land Amer¬ 
ica. Broad land in two great halves divided, 
first by geography, and after that by settle¬ 
ment and race, and later on by lack of under¬ 
standing, by rancor, too, and by that goading 
itch of pride which leads to blood and tears, 
and graves packed close together. 

Confusion, then, was settling down upon 
the land, a dark and threatening cloudy 
trouble, closer drifting closer, growing 
blacker, coming nearer, nearer still: it set 
the nation talking. Most of the wordy ones 
showed by their speech just where they lived, 
but there were those who sent up prayers for 
North and South alike; among these last was 
Laura Pentland. 

When her husband read to her, she listened 
eagerly, drinking in the reports of a rude 
man’s bout with the polished orator, ex¬ 
claiming in wondering awe when autumn’s 
election said the first was victor. The war 
cloud was closer now, darker, yet as it grew 
more dense and somber, news came piercing 




268 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


it like shafts of lightning, news of him, simple 
man out of the West, one bearing in the name 
of “Honest Abe,” the promise of a just and 
wise administration. He was to pass through 
Pittsburgh—in February—on his way to 
Washington—she must be there when the 
champion passed. 

Pentland would have preferred to stay at 
home, and with this end in view he pointed out 
the extreme likelihood of stormy weather; she 
replied that stormy weather was very common, 
and that she’d seen a great deal of it, and 
lived through it. Said he, there would be 
enormous frightful tremendous crowds; said 
she, they had a carriage, and their old black 
servant George was a very careful driver. Most 
shameful argument he saved for the last, hint¬ 
ing that since she was now totally blind she 
could not see him even if she went; her reply 
to this was that she still had ears. 

Round went the shadows of the sundial, 
and brought the day, a day of heavens over¬ 
cast and drizzling rain beating coldly upon 
the earth, a supine and naked earth that had 
no comfort from above. Bad weather, but 
when she had been wrapped up warm in buf- 




OH FOR A CHARM 


269 


falo robes and lifted into the carriage, Laura 
Pentland felt quite comfortable. 

They drove down town, halted before the 
Monongahela House. It was surrounded by 
a cheering mob. A silent figure stepped out 
upon the balcony, the cheers rang louder, and 
Mrs. Pentland wanted to know what he looked 
like. Looked like a boor, a tall uncouth fel¬ 
low, said her husband, and then there was a 
hush, and Lincoln spoke. 

When it was over, the carriage turned back 
toward the old brick house. 

“Thank you, Arthur.” 

Silence. 

“His voice is deep,” she went on, “deep 
and grave and full of sorrow. He speaks like 
a man who is rich in understanding, and that 
is the chief thing in this time of trouble.” 

“They say he is a person of no education.” 

“Perhaps so,—judged by our standards, 
but I’m sure he has that love which is an 
aspiration toward the Right. This will guide 
him between mawkish sentimentalism on the 
one hand and inhumanity on the other. To 
me he represents that great life-force which 
is swamping privilege and blind tradition in 




270 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


this vast fermenting land of ours, and—” 
“I doubt if it averts the crisis.” 

“I shan’t hold that against him. It may be 
for the best that we have war.” 

“A very strange thing to say!” 

6 ‘Not at all! If we can’t learn our lesson 
without the discipline of pain, then pain is 
necessary to our program. I look upon the 
present situation, not so much as a quarrel 
over states’ rights and slavery, as proof of the 
inability of even free men to see themselves 
as brothers. Until they do, nothing of last¬ 
ing good is to be hoped for. Men must be 
bound by the ties of spirit before there can be 
true progress.” 

Pentland turned to her with a bitter mouth, 
“Then there will be no progress, for men 
are not so bound. Only the impersonal and 
selfish exigencies of life hold them together.” 
She patted his hand reprovingly, 
“Superficially it would appear so, on the 
other hand the daily work of mankind seems 
to me a hint at a religious striving. After all, 
my dear, what is religion except a struggle for 
something higher? Surely Christianity holds 
no monopoly of spiritual values; surely other 




OH FOR A CHARM 


271 


faiths, and even the so-called irreligious 
groups, may also possess the Truth. Isn’t 
your rude and profane laborer religious if he 
has love of life and the courage to mix with 
it? I for one will call him so if he ever so 
numbly recognizes the existence of the Ideal, 
and uses his transforming energy to move for¬ 
ward. I believe that young as this country 
is, its citizens are being welded together by 
their work, and that they are in the process 
of being moulded, one might say, into a spirit¬ 
ual relationship which is essentially that of 
equality.” 

66 Ah! you are a democrat after all!” 

“I am more than that. Political democracy, 
even social democracy, is only a fragment and 
a phase. The real goal I conceive to be the 
brotherhood of man upon the earth, and as 
we move toward that we must expand our 
view, casting off everything that keeps us from 
a just weight and measure of human values. 
Religious development must come from us , 
not from above, and it must ally itself with 
earth as well as heaven. Oh Arthur!” and she 
clutched his arm, “how can the plan of God 
be formal, when spirit has no objects save in 




272 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


the sense of purposes to fulfill? How can 
our ideal lie on beyond the grave, when it is 
obvious that our goal is mastery of the things 
of this present world? It’s all so clear, and 
then in a flash it’s all confused and contra¬ 
dictory. Why is it?” 

“Come dear, we are home again. Let’s get 
into the house as quickly as possible, out of 
this chilling rain.” 


V 

In the days and weeks that followed, the 
blind woman spent most of her waking hours 
in her easy-chair, sitting quiet. Her senses 
seemed to be dulling under a kind of opiate 
which more and more shut out the world and 
coaxed her to withdraw within herself. A 
smile played on her lips; contemplation is 
very sweet when one is old, and she was old. 
She said her soul was fermenting, but though 
deep revery cut her off from much that moved 
about her, it came to pass that the nervous 
furtive restless pacing of her husband’s feet 
made her uneasy. 

“What is it, Arthur?” 

She heard him halt abruptly. 





OH FOR A CHARM 


273 


“The toothache again!” he cried out 
harshly. 

Mrs. Pentland frowned, 

“Why do you always put me off with that 
pleasantry?” 

She heard him gasp, heard him stammer 
desperately, 

“I’d tell you, if I thought you.” 

“Well?” 

“Nothing. Just another pleasantry of 
mine.” 

Her face clouded, 

“I’ll say no more. It is clear that you do 
not wish to confide in me. I’m sorry, because 
there is something on your mind.” 

“Your birthday,” said he, with sudden 
force. “I was thinking of a surprise for you, 
that’s all. It comes next month, you know.” 

She was beaming now, 

“Yes! I shall be sixty-eight. Time flies, 
doesn’t it? Especially when one is happy.” 

VI 

Round went the shadows of the sundial, 
softly and in silence round and round, and 
brought her the happiness of another birth- 





274 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


day: scented notes and flowers and gifts with¬ 
out a name, and in the afternoon her young 
friends came, girls with caressing hands and 
youths who strove manfully to temper down 
what kept welling up in their eyes. They all 
sat round in front of her, like subjects before 
their queen, a tiny dainty queen, delicate and 
white, more flower than of the flesh, a just 
queen who turned her silvered head from side 
to side and smiled upon them all alike, show¬ 
ing forth benignity that knew no favorites. 

“You’re spoiling me with your kindness,” 
she said. “My last birthday was nice, but this 
one is nicer still. Is this progressive? If so, 
I shall insist upon living forever, so that I may 
have thousands of birthdays, each one more 
delightful than the one before. Barbara,” to 
a young girl who sat and stroked her hand, “I 
hereby commission you to discover a charm 
that will give me eternal life on earth! Sci¬ 
ence is your forte, you know!” 

Laughter. 

“Yes, let her try her teeth on that,” grinned 
a youth, slyly yanking at the girl’s hair. “She 
thinks science can do anything.” 

Laughter. 




OH FOR A CHARM 


275 


“I don’t care!” protested serious Barbara. 
“Science can do wonderful things, and if cer¬ 
tain boys I know would study it a little more 
seriously they might admit that some day—” 

“Some day! Some day! She’s the some¬ 
day girl, isn’t she, Mrs. Pentland?” 

The blind woman patted the girl’s hand, 

“They’re only teasing you, dear. Some day 
perhaps we shall know how to prolong life 
indefinitely. Science is only in its infancy.” 

“Fancy our living on and on and on and 
on-n-n-n-n-n!” said Barbara, wide-eyed. “I 
should think it would be won-n-n-derful!” 

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” laughed 
Arthur Pentland from the doorway. “Won- 
n-n-derful! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” 

Such glee from the black-bearded man 
whom they had forgotten! He wasn’t such a 
bad sort after all! And so 

“Ha ha ha ha ha!” they all laughed with 
him. 

“Wonderful!” cried Pentland harshly. 
“You silly things, such presumption would 
draw down the most horrible punishment 
imaginable!” 

He turned and left the room. 




276 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


There was an embarrassed silence. 

“Anyhow,” murmured Barbara, “I hope 
I’m like Mrs. Pentland when I’m her age. 
She seems to have more life than any of us!” 

“Perhaps I have!” smiled the blind woman. 
“The flesh grows weary, but the spirit needn’t. 
When one grows old, you know, the physical 
world stops being a tyrant. Perhaps that is 
why I long to grapple with it again, to see 
if spirit isn’t its master, not its slave.” 

“How could that be?” 

“You’ll see some day, I hope. Young peo¬ 
ple must be concerned with tangible things, 
but take care, take care! Long ago I had a 
brother, my dears, who said that idealism can 
express itself in practical ways. That’s true, 
but there’s a danger. You see, means may 
become the end, and if we forget the true end, 
we may build up a great body without a potent 
spirit. Too much concern with mechanical 
and solid things tempts us to lose faith in the 
unseen; it is so easy to fall a prey to material¬ 
ism. The things we see about us, children, 
are vestment, nothing more. The substance 
lies within, and he who takes the dress for 
man himself, is duped. I am in the habit of 




OH FOR A CHARM 


277 


saying that I had a brother, and not that I 
have one, for it has been more than thirty 
years since I had word of him. I’m afraid 
that instead of his reducing the chaos of the 
West to order, the West turned him into a 
whirling fragment.” 

She fell silent, wearied by the talk and the 
gay excitement, and by the sorrows of remem¬ 
brance,—and presently the young guests rose 
to go. Her husband led her to the door, and 
there she stood all flushed with gratitude that 
they had come, giving her hand to each youth 
passing out, receiving gently and in silence the 
reverent kiss each girl left upon her faded 
cheek,—and so she said farewell to them. 

VII 

She’d said farewell to those who had come 
to her birthday party, and now by subtle hint 
and sign there appeared in her the beginnings 
of a quite different kind of leave-taking. Life 
and death, what an inexplicable partnership 
these two maintain! How different, and how 
same! At odds, yet in Laura Pentland shad¬ 
ing one into the other, with ease, as if by pre¬ 
arranged agreement. One by one the birthday 




278 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


guests had gone; one by one the ties of earthly 
life were being sundered for her. Led by an 
unseen hand she passed, not to the door to 
say good-bye to youthful friends, but down 
the slope invisible, and toward a portal of 
another sort. 

With dignity and with grace she went the 
way she knew she had to go, renouncing what 
she must, and glorying in the happiness of 
such small things as church bells from afar, 
and thrushes singing in the dawn. Sweet pun¬ 
gent spring and fragrant summer passed 
swiftly, and the sundial began to mark the 
days of autumn. The weather grew cooler 
and she kept indoors, preferring the fireside 
to the porch, because her feet chilled so easily 
now,—she had given up the out-of-doors too 
late: a cold settled in her chest. 

“But it’s nothing,” she would smile, and 
press a thin hand against her breast, “noth¬ 
ing to worry you, Arthur. I’m sure I’ll be 
rid of it by to-morrow.” 

The morrow found the cold still there, as 
did the next day, and the next and the next. 
January came and still her hacking cough 
clung on, though she laughed at it, and de- 




OH FOR A CHARM 


279 


lighted to remind the doctor that her lungs 
weren’t giving her the slightest trouble. Feb¬ 
ruary showed its face and stayed a while and 
went away, and March appeared, a cold and 
blustery weather that whined about the house 
as winter’s last attack. And through it all 
Laura Pentland sat snug and warm beside the 
fire, wondering—since her cold was better— 
why her husband was walking up and down 
so nervously. 

6 ‘Arthur, you mustn’t be anxious on my 
account. I feel quite all right, and when 
spring comes I’ll certainly get back my 
strength. Tell me, is the snow off the 
ground?” 

“No, except on the south side of the house.” 

“Oh splendid! that’s where we planted 
crocuses, don’t you remember? Do run out, 
dear, perhaps they are in bloom. They come 
very early,” 

She heard him leave the room. 

return: a single blossom came into her grop¬ 
ing hand. 

“A crocus,” she whispered. “I knew it, 
Arthur, I knew it. What color is it, dear?” 

“Lavender.” 




280 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


6 ‘Lavender! Oh how lovely! Lavender is 
such a charming color, and in the crocus it 
is particularly fine. How fresh it is, so crisp 
and cool, so full of new young life. It does 
me good just to feel it.” 

And so she murmured on, saying over and 
over again that the crocus was a wonderful 
thing, a precious gift from God, which like 
the leaf upon the tree and the bluebird in the 
sky, is meant to bring us joy. Chatting thus 
she passed a happy day, but toward evening 
there came upon her what she had learned to 
call a “bad spell.” Bad, very bad, the cogs 
and avenues of her inner mind so twisted and 
gone askew that several times she had to halt 
and let her thoughts straighten out their kinks 
so that they could be said by lips. Once she 
waited so long that she flushed a little, mur¬ 
muring, 

“I can’t recall the word just now, but never 
mind. It’s of no importance. I’ve had a very 

gay.gay.just a moment. 

I’ve had a very gay.day! That’s 

the word I’ve been looking for! I’ve had a 
very gay day! How strong the sun came 
through the window, didn’t it, dear? It won’t 








OH FOR A CHARM 


281 


be long now until it’s warm enough for me to 
sit outside.” 


VIII 

After that she talked of little else than 
spring, of that momentous day when she might 
leave the living room for a bold adventure to 
the porch. April came and went away, May 
brought its sunny weather,—the dawn of her 
last day on earth gave promise of the dry still 
warmth she had been waiting for. Her hus¬ 
band was afraid she’d take cold again, but she 
insisted. In silence he wrapped her up as if 
she were some fragile bit of china, and car¬ 
ried her to the porch, and there he placed her 
in an armchair made soft with cushions 
brought by old black George. 

“Oh isn’t it pleasant here!” she cried. 
“What a beautiful beautiful mystery that no 
matter how long the winter is, spring always 
returns. This is what I’ve been needing, dear. 
I can feel my strength come back with the 
warmth of the sun. With all these spring¬ 
time odors in my nostrils I feel like my old 
self again. On a day like this, the shadow 
of the sundial must be very plain and black, 




282 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


the light’s so strong.Why are you 

trembling, Arthur?” 

“Because my heart is curdling with despair! 

You are going to leave me, while I.I 

face a horror that is greater than death. 
I.” 

“Perhaps not, dear. Perhaps I shan’t leave 
you after all. My body is worn out, Arthur, 
but my spirit isn’t. I’ve known for some time 
that life is slipping away from me, but on an 
invigorating day like this, all my longings 
turn back to earth. My soul is torn by two 
conflicting forces. I think I am on the verge 

of knowing what it’s all about.at 

least I can say that I no longer look forward to 
immortality beyond the grave. The destiny 
of man lies here with man, I feel that very 
strongly. I feel, too, that orthodox theology 
rests upon a sense of our helplessness, our 
weakness in a world we do not understand. 
If we could understand it, I think we’d be glad 
to face about, give up our dream of Heaven, 
and accept the Earth.” 

Her face suddenly twisted into a knot, as 
if from the grip of an inner pain. She spoke 
with sharp and jerky effort, 







OH FOR A CHARM 


283 


6 ‘Why is it that with every forward step 
I am drawn back? I seem to see, and then I 
know I do not. I grope, but do not find. In 
this last hour I feel the force of my child¬ 
hood training, as never in my life before. It 
comes back upon me as summation of my 
circle, to wrench away all the conclusions I’ve 
been striving for. 0 Christ, have they so 
little root? I’m held fast by one and beckoned 
by another. What about immortality? An 
ethical existence is impossible without the 
premise of eternal life. But how reconcile 
immortality with man’s destiny upon the 
earth? I’m afraid I’ve gone too far. I’m 
afraid for our religion. It must change. It 
must adjust itself, but if it goes too far it 
will end in chaos, as Brother’s spirit did. 0 
Edward! Edward! where are you, Little 
Brother? Christ have mercy on me—show 
me the way.” 

She swayed from side to side, blind groping 
Laura Pentland, weakly panting, clinging to 
the hand of one who stood erect beside her 
chair and wept in deep despairing silence,— 
but presently she had some ease: pain fled 
out of her features, serenity came back. An 




284 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


aggressive urge cut in against her confusion, 

“I’ve got to know.is our vague 

appetite for another life only a hidden wish 

for eternal activity here on earth. 

where change gives opportunity for endless 

progress. Perhaps.if some unifying 

thread be found.some common faith 

to bind men to the invisible.and to 

each other.Humanity must move 

toward brotherhood. How much nobler such 
an ideal than our weak insipid dream of Para¬ 
dise! Not Heaven’s bliss, but America a cen¬ 
tury from now, two centuries, that’s what I’d 
like to see, if I had the chance. How wonder¬ 
ful to live that long, to see confusion turn to 
clearness, to test out what I surmise. But my 
mind is wandering. To see this and to share 
in it, one would have to have a charm against 
the Fleshless One and be deathless, a man who 
could not die!” 

“Great God!” cried Pentland, falling to his 
knees before her, “you have my secret at last! 
Pity me, Laura, pity me! for I am destined to 
live on beyond you!” 

The face of the blind woman had become 
radiant with an ineffable ecstasy, descending 










OH FOR A CHARM 


285 


like a holy veil, blurring her perception of the 
world she was leaving. With a sublime smile 
she leaned back in her chair, and placed her 
hand upon the head of Arthur Pentland, her 
voice coming to him as from some far-off dis¬ 
tant place, prophetic, 

“I am dying, Arthur. You are going to 
live on beyond me, dear. I am not afraid, 
but I almost envy you, you who survive me, 
continuing in the world where all that has 
been dark to me must drift away before the 
light. Do not be dismayed by my confusions. 
Let what you have seen cause you to trust your 
Maker for what you have not yet seen. Believe 
in the goodness of life, although earthly happi¬ 
ness be impossible. Be brave against the ad¬ 
versities of time. Fulfill your destiny, I charge 
you. Struggle to reconcile the things of mat¬ 
ter and the things of spirit, for Heaven and 

Earth must be made one.I have done 

what I could, and now we part. From here 
on you go alone, until a greater love becomes 

your staff. Don’t weep, please.Oh! 

it is sweet to die like this.precious 

our long years.let memory of them 

give you courage.I.I am 







286 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


content.though somehow. 

somehow troubled ..... troubled. 

ah.too late, too late.it’s 

too late to know ..... good-bye, my dear. 
Thank you for the happy life you’ve given 

me, and for all your kindness.and 

devotion.thank you.and 

now may the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ 
rest upon you forever and ever.” 













Wanderer 












I 


.long days of fretful argument, 

days of hope and panic and despair and hope 
again, then confirmation of the good glad 
news. Good news! Glad news! The war 
is over! Thank God there’ll never be another! 
Hooray, and now for out of this stinking pen, 
and off for home! Hooray, hooray! Stand 
back, you double-damned and triple-accursed 
rebels, stand back! or else you’ll get a gob of 
northern spit right in the eye, or maybe a 
broken nose—we’re Yanks. We’ve licked ye, 
ye blankety blanks and dashed dashes, and 
now good-bye! good-bye! 

So be it, then, ye double-damned and triple- 
accursed Yanks, good-bye! good-bye! Go and 
be damned! Away, you imitation soldiers, 
and come no more! All out! Empty the 
stockade! Turn ’em loose! All right, they’re 
gone—no, there’s one who lingers, the blank¬ 
ety blank, he must be deaf. Hey there, what’s- 
you-name, you Private Arthur Pentland, you 
wus a prisoner, but now yer free, so git the 

289 



290 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


hell from here. Go home to yer wife and 
babies, feel their caresses, taste their happy 
tears, and tell the trembling and expanding 
tale of the mighty battles you won all by yer- 
self, with one hand tied behind yer back. 
What! still here? Move on! 

Moved on, a fragment in the northward¬ 
stumbling line, going with mechanical feet, a 
dull creature walking as in a daze,—and one 
by one his comrades dropped away from him, 
one off to the right in answer to the call of 
shaky old mother, one to the left to wife and 
the toddler become a gawky girl, one here, one 
there, until in time Pentland was alone, a 
single solitary figure marching north against 
the twilight, his head bowed in thought, 
thought which bears its fruit at last. Halt! 
He draws his army pistol from his pocket, 
presses it against his temple, and pulls the 
trigger: the weapon misses fire. 

With a cry he throws it to the ground, and 
as he stands there his face seems to wither 
and to die, then as from an inner, far-away, 
and distant prompting, he goes upon his way, 
on and on and on, how long thus striding no 
man can say, save one. 




WANDERER 


291 


II 

.a wanderer in a chaos, a bit of 

human life adrift in pandemonium, treading 
a land laid low by war, and prostrate, now, in 
sickish dream. Through smoking ruins he 
pursued his way, through what had once been 
streets of what had once been towns, seeing, 
whichever way he looked, wreck, ruin, starva¬ 
tion. He saw the havoc wrought by man: the 
rich made poor, the poor turned into beggars, 
and all of them reduced to black distress. 
Proud ladies left with only a cow they knew 
not how to milk, barns in ashes, abandoned 
fields, the ground soaked with blood, dead 
horses rotting in the sun, and buzzards circling 
high against the blue. 

Buzzards on earth as it is in heaven, a mot¬ 
ley snarling thieving crew, nameless desper¬ 
adoes, and some with names that once laid 
claim to honor—but not now. Carpetbaggers 
swarming upon the exhausted south, the lanes 
dusty with the bare but eager feet of niggers 
scampering toward the myth of freedom, refu¬ 
gees so weakened by their private woes that 
they were tempted: they snatched a cap from 
the wailing orphan looking for papa, beat 





292 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


crippled soldier over the head, and gave the 
widow something rudely masculine to think 
about,—all this saw Pentland, as he moved 
through the ravaged land, disconsolate. 

North and steadily north, and presently he 
heard, above the wailing and the weeping and 
the cries of bitter hatred, another sound: the 
racket of pleasure-seekers, celebrating the 
close of this last war in all American history. 
He saw luxury, men gambling and racing 
horses, boys spilling liquor down their throats, 
and the gentler sex pursuing what looked to 
him like vice, unbridled lust. Wide-eyed he 
gazed upon these women, these ones be¬ 
decked with scintillating jewels, with pow¬ 
dered painted raddled cheeks like whores, 
these brazen creatures of the sex of his own 
sacred pair, divine and holy Laura and his 
mother,—why! these about him were cour¬ 
tesans! Just see those hoop skirts flaring! 
high heels! gaudy petticoats! frizzled hair 
hanging down behind, hair false as the hearts 
within. They held no lure for him, being but 
a feather in his throat as he strode through 
the gantlet of their smirking and their cooing. 

And yet as he passed on by and left them, 




WANDERER 


293 


his dull lethargic mind began to grope, and 
groped until it fell upon an ancient memory; 
in the sickness of his heart it seems to him to 
be reality. Reality come back, and mad dream 
go! I wake! pronounce the name of home! 
0 labyrinthine America! immense unfriendly 
land, there is a spot far far from here, where 
in a wooded valley two clear and limpid 
streams flow into one, a spot that’s sweet with 
peace, a little town packed tight with dear 
ecstatic memories! it rises up before me, Pitts¬ 
burgh! 0 Pittsburgh, I am coming back to 
you, back home to childhood scenes, back to 
the old brick house and sacred graves there 
in the garden by the lilac bush, two graves that 
somehow must be three, and then there’ll be 
some ease for my restless weary troubled foot. 

So thinking in the fog and muddled strain 
of what we’ll call his mind, he said some words 
and paid some money and climbed into a car¬ 
riage. The wheels went round and round, and 
Pentland fell to brooding on the glories of the 
long ago. Deeper and deeper into revery he 
sank, till all at once it seemed the carriage had 
halted on a hill, and when he looked about he 
saw a sea of vapour, a vast and billowing sea 




294 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


of stuff pierced here and there by flame, smoke 
hiding the tortured creatures that groaned and 
screamed their anguish in its bowels. He 
seized the driver by the arm and said he 
wanted to go to Pittsburgh, not to Hell, and 
the driver answered that this, although it 
looked like Hell, was Pittsburgh. 

Pentland gaped and trembled, staring, 
gawking, puzzling. Numbly he climbed out 
of the carriage, gazing down into that seeth¬ 
ing mess of soot and grime and smoke and 
noise, Pittsburgh! Childhood home, land of 
his boyish dreams, surrounded by the wooded 
hills, under the sky so blue, Pittsburgh! Wel¬ 
come ! Pentland, welcome home! 

A long long time he stood there, then 
slowly he descended, shrinking back at every 
step as from the pit of Hell, yet since all 
damned souls must go on, he never halted. 
Went on and on, finding his stumbling way 
through the maze of unfamiliar streets, flanked 
round by smug pretentious buildings and by a 
press of people so strange to him, and yet they 
seemed at ease in this, his childhood home. 
He turned, bewildered, confused, a bearded 
stranger in the old familiar village. 




WANDERER 


295 


“Where is the Pentland estate?” he asked 
a passer-by. 

“No spik Englees,” said the man, and hur¬ 
ried on. 

“Where is the Pentland estate?” he asked 
a passer-by. 

“Never heard of it,” said the man, and hur¬ 
ried on. 

Never heard of it! Well, of all the ridicu¬ 
lous nonsense! Never heard of the old brick 
mansion built by Henry Morton at the close of 
the Revolution! But it was there, oh yes! it 
was, and when with dragging foot and strain¬ 
ing eye he turned a certain corner, he saw it, 
there in the center of the block he owned. 
Right in its place, and yet it seemed out of 
place, for while he’d been away the open 
stretches on either side had been taken over 
for tenements and factories, by bustling hust¬ 
ling tussling people, his neighbors. 

Slowly he opened the rusty gate and passed 
into the garden, a place of death, for the trees 
were withering from the clutch of smoke and 
soot—the grass was black—flowers all gone. 
Dully he gazed about, and paused: before him 
stood a tarnished lilac bush, a grim and black- 




296 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


ened sundial, two graves. He took off his 
hat, and bowed his head and jerked it up 
again, for the faces of curious strangers were 
staring at him from the street, left, right, and 
out in front. 

On up the path he dragged himself, over 
the old brick walk grown up with grass, up 
the creaky steps, and into the stale damp 
house. Overpowered by memory he sank into 
a chair, and gave a little moan, and then he 
gave a little gasp, for a sound had come to him 
from somewhere, a shuffling scrape of a tread, 
drawing nearer. Up sprang the wanderer and 
backed against the wall, terror in his pale pale 
eyes, till in the wan dim light, there in the 
doorway, he saw the figure of an aged black 
man, halt and lame and full of quavers, his 
kinky old head grizzled with silver. He bowed 
respectfully, and raised his creaky voice, 

“Welcome, Masteh. George wait fo’ yo’ a 
long long time.” 

Pentland slumped into a chair, muttering, 

“Begone.” 

“Masteh Ahthuh, Ah wants to stay wid 




WANDERER 


297 


‘‘Begone!” cried Pentland. “You are free. 
It is I who am in bondage.” 

“Masteh!” 

“Begone!” 

Ill 

And so he came back home to Pittsburgh, 
pleasant vale no longer, village no more, nor 
town—it was a city, a swelling frog set on 
exceeding the ox. 

He shut himself up in the house, but though 
he closed the doors and closed the windows, the 
soot came in and the smoke came in and the 
noise came in. The door bell had rusted 
dumb, but see! fretting Mahomet has visitors: 
boys delivering circulars, agents with bargains 
in books and corsets, and presently a woman 
tapping at the window,—she was willing to 
rent the quaint old place. Such was her first 
idea, her second was to flee from the dishev¬ 
eled spirit she’d raised, thus giving place to 
one who was bolder, a man with a diamond 
horseshoe in his tie and a black cigar in his 
face, 

“Good morning, fine, lovely, very nice. 
Say! Mr. Pentland, ’s nice place ye got here, 




298 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


very. Good location for our new steel mill. 
Jones & McCormick’s my firm. Biggest in 
the city. Glad to know ye. Well, what’s 
your price?” 

Not for sale. 

“Tut tut, quite so, and all of that, but say! 
everybody’s got their price. Old residences 
bound to go. Too bad, but this is the manu¬ 
facturing section of the future. City grow¬ 
ing every day. The figures speak for them¬ 
selves. Steel rails and rolling mills and nails, 
aha! don’t forget the nails! Eh?” 

Slam went the door. 

Round went the shadows of the sundial, 
marching round and round, a pointless march 
save that it pushed an ever-growing misery 
into the bearded face of Arthur Pentland. 
Time! it was a precious gift that he had grown 
to hate, despise, and once as he stood in the 
garden mourning beside his pair of graves, he 
muttered in his wretchedness, 

“Myth, myth, that’s your immortality. 

Nothing but dust.both ashes. And 

what a blessing, for you.free of all 

the torments of passing time. Poor Laura, 
your prophecy of future light was only a dying 





WANDERER 


299 


fancy. I’m glad you cannot see how much 
you were mistaken. Yes, you are at rest, but 
I am not. Every detail of everything trans¬ 
piring imprints itself upon my brain, as clear 
and sharp as a steel engraving. Moment by 
moment my recollection is piling up, a burden 
ever greater and greater, a mass that pushes 
into the foreground of my consciousness de¬ 
spite all efforts to keep it back. My memory 
of the past! 0 Christ, how it follows me 
every instant, palpitating within this cursed 
head of mine, pressing down upon my very 
soul. Mother! Laura! it is unbearable! I—” 
Brisk footsteps made him break off: he 
turned to find a smiling round-faced little man 
who simply must shake his hand and shake it 
and shake it, for this was the Secretary of the 
Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, 

6 6 Your letter received yesterday. I came 
at once. My dear dear sir, surely you do not 
object to smoke! Why, we must teach our 
boys and girls to be proud of our name The 
Smoky City , for smoke is a symptom of pros¬ 
perity. We are now the center of the largest 
manufacturing district for steel and iron in 
the world, also for coal and coke, white lead 




300 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


and pickles, tin plate and air brakes. Our 
population is well over a quarter of a million, 
think of it! And smoke is symbol of all this! 
Moreover, my dear dear sir, we’d be un¬ 
healthy without our smoke, for it is anti- 
miasmatic, preventing tuberculosis, asthma, 
goitre, dropsy, pneumonia, and other diseases 
too numerous to mention. Be grateful that 
you live in Pittsburgh, sir, be grateful. Here, 
take these pamphlets and read ’em. Get 
acquainted with Greater Pittsburgh and Her 
Future.” 

“But—” 

“Tut tut, quite so, and all of that, but say! 
never mind apologizing. As one of our most 
esteemed citizens, etc. Pittsburgh is a great 
city, let us be greater. Chicago, pooh. New 
York, two poohs. Pittsburgh, I tell ye, that’s 
the place. Combines more geographical ad¬ 
vantages than any city in the United States. 
Lies in the very heart of the bituminous coal 
formation of the Appalachians. The very 
heart of the natural gas region, think of it! 
By river transport we have direct access to the 
very heart of eighteen of the finest states in 
the Union. Salubrious climate, low mor* 




WANDERER 


301 


tality, lovely spot to raise a family. Are you 
married?” 


IV 

Queer chap, this Pentland! A home-loving 
fellow they say, but somehow never satisfied. 
The seventies ruined this one and that one and 
those over there, but it only made him richer, 
—old Morton was shrewd to put his money 
in land. Pentland is rich! opulent beyond the 
dreams of avarice, as some wag has put it, and 
yet he’s groaning and moaning like one pos¬ 
sessed of devils. Come! Pentland, tell us 
why this restlessness, this walking striding 
pacing, this harassed look, this black dishev¬ 
eled head, isn’t this home to you? You have 
your house, your four walls where you are 
king, your candles and the open fire, and then 
there’s the harpsichord, you know, with a 
selection from Scarlatti, and a song from 
Handel, entitled—gracious! why do they 
make that noise? 

It is a noise, is it not? It is, I quite agree. 
A din, a clatter and a racket, a yelling pound¬ 
ing whistling screaming never before heard 
this side of Hell. Hooray, it’s a celebration! 




302 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


The sundial’s brought us 1890, a wondrous 
year for Pittsburgh, for this is the anniversary 
of such prodigious and stupendous growth, I 
swear it sounds like a fairy tale. From naked 
waste to blooming rose, behold our Pittsburgh! 
Mightier than ever, without a parallel, no ri¬ 
vals she. Brain brawn and boosting done it, 
gents, and pig iron too deserves a word. 
Hooray! we’re four hundred thousand 
strong, and that’s a half a million, almost. 
Annually producing, ladies and gentlemen, 
eight million feet of plate glass, and that’s 
almost ten million, ain’t it? Hooray for us 
and you and me, and say! don’t you forget 
the smoke, the anti-miasmatic, anti-asthmatic, 
anti-tubercular, life-giving, and soul-purging 
smoke! Hooray! 

All Pittsburgh is hooraying, save Pentland, 
and he is groaning. Shame on you, Pentland, 
why don’t you git out and boost your home 
town ? He makes no answer, only moans and 
holds his head, oh he is so unhappy. Maybe 
he has the toothache again, for now he leaves 
the house and sets out for a doctor. Down the 
street he goes, and what a jargon! This 
squeaking, growling, grunting, this gargling 




WANDERER 


303 


whining monkey chatter, is this English? Is 
this Pittsburgh? Is this America? Whence 
come these strange peculiar ones, these ugly 
faces, these fierce whiskers and squat brows, 
these sniffling ones without a handkerchief, oh 
how revolting! No factus homo here save 
Pentland, but only smelly animals, oh how 
disgusting! People from the ends of the 
earth, brought here just to affront him, Pent- 
land the aristocrat, hundreds and hundreds 
and hundreds of them crowding close to him, 
these Slavs and dirty Greeks, Italians, Israel¬ 
ites and Finns, Germans, noisy Irish, wild and 
hairy Russians! Four races, did you say? 
Why! there are forty—but here’s the doctor’s 
office. 

“H’m, I congratulate you,” says the doctor. 
6 ‘Sound as a dollar. Organs working as nicely 
as a bicycle factory. Great invention, this 
new-fangled thing they call the bicycle. Yes, 
good investment for an insurance company, 
I’d call you. Sound as a dollar.” 

Out of the doctor’s office he strides, and 
goes back home, and still they’re celebrating, 
for now that we are great, we must be greater. 
The past is only a beginning, now watch us 




304 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


grow. Pittsburgh! greatest of them all, a 
giant among pigmies, and don’t forget the 
salubrious atmosphere! Come, everyone who’s 
got a voice, let’s beller out several dozen 
modest little prophecies! and then out with 
your flags and we’ll parade! 

A parade it is, and Pentland, too, parades, 
pacing up and down his room, his hands 
against his ears, and muttering to himself. 
Tut tut, you’re talking wildly, aren’t you, 
Pentland? Well, if you are, be careful, sir, 
for gentlemen are most careful of their dic¬ 
tion. But wait! he can no longer speak. His 
lips are twitching, perhaps he’s ill. Feeling 
indisposed, dear Arthur? Then go to bed, 
and Mother will take care for you. Dear, dear 
Arthur, how she loves you, how tenderly she’ll 
nurse you, yes, suckle you, poor timid infant 
who must be guarded against the impacts of 
the unfriendly world. Crawl in beside her, 
and thus escape from life. Return within her¬ 
self ! Shrivel back into the womb! 

But sh-h-h-h-h! leave off this banter! His 
face is wrinkling up; he is a baby after all— 
he’s going to cry. Weep, then, Arthur dear, 
for that is what all babies do, and you’re a 




WANDERER 


305 


baby. A baby, yes! for though there’s manly 
growth ahead of you, you’re still in diapers! 
Manly growth to come, and so begone! as once 
upon a time you said to old Black George. 
Be off! Take one last look at the old brick 
house, this shell, this protecting rind within 
which you might have coaxed yourself toward 
growth—might have, but didn’t. You chose 
to decay, that’s why you’re stirred out now, on 
to a wider stage. Begone! 

V 

And so he said farewell to Pittsburgh, and 
fell to wandering up and down the land, find¬ 
ing many Pittsburghs called by other names. 
He stayed a week in Kansas City—we are 
dirty, let us be dirtier. In Albany it was 
watch us grow, in New York he mustn’t for¬ 
get this was the metropolis. Then Boston, 
modest little place. Cleveland unparalleled 
and Milwaukee without a rival. Buffalo, too, 
deserves a word, and as for Detroit, her figures 
speak for themselves. Opportunities on every 
corner of Savannah, and some in alleys, too. 
New Orleans is queen of the South, Denver 
pride of the West! St. Louis and Seattle, 




306 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


Tacoma and Frisco, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Osh¬ 
kosh! a dozen more, a hundred more, hooray 
for us and me and I. 

Dirty sweaty vulgar places Pentland 
thought them, and fled away and came to 
more just like them, the whole an incongruous 
medley of men and things and ideas, shaping 
itself, and moulding Pentland, too, even as he 
fled. He left here and went there, discover¬ 
ing, thus, a fundamental law of physics, which 
says that if a bit of matter is not in one place, 
it must be in another. That law he tested, 
tried, and proved, and acted as if he hadn’t. 
There was no harbor for the boat he steered, 
and so he drifted on, half swamped by the sea 
America, groaning from the buffet of her wind 
and storm, yet limping on and on, a tattered 
sail against the sky. He boxed the compass 
round, North by East, and South again,—into 
the cul-de-sac of Florida, where in a little park 
one day he saw an ancient derelict, another, 
three four five, established on their favorite 
benches, taking the balmy air. 

Old men talking creakily, murmuring over 
and over again how nice and warm the sun was. 
With glazing eyes they blinked upon the world 




WANDERER 


307 


all tumbling down about their ears, and asked 
the news of such a one, and them blasted kid¬ 
neys of his. They spoke of the troubles of 
upper plate when bread is hard, and told of 
the queerness of these crazy damned things, 
these automobiles, rushin’ hurly burly pell 
mell and topsy upside down before their eyes, 
b’god there ought to be a law agin ’em! And 
then they fell, as ancient ones are wont to do, 
upon the glories of the olden time. Great 
splendid memories these, with ugly cracks 
chinked up by failing recollection, memories 
laced with sorrow and bitterness,—smoothed 
over now, however, varnished, made immacu¬ 
late. 

“Aye, them was the days.” 

“That they wus.” 

“A fine appearin’ man he wus, too, wus 
Robert E. Lee.” 

“I rec’lect him well, I do.” 

“Shucks, I ’member his father, you strip- 
lin’s, you.” 

“And I, I remember further back than any 
of you, for I recall the bells they rang when 
Jackson took the oath of office. I lived in 
Pittsburgh at the time.” 




308 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


The hoary crew turned their bleary eyes 
upon the stranger sitting near. 

“Eh? Why, that’s more’n seventy year 
ago! You can’t remember that!” 

“I can!” protested Pentland with a shak¬ 
ing mouth. “It’s true, I swear it is! I re¬ 
member further back than that, too. I recall 
the day that Washington retired from office. 
It was in 1797.” 

At this they stared with all their might upon 
the brazen one, who spoke of things that could 
not be. 1797, eh? And this is 1902! That’s 
danged near a century, ain’t it? He claims it 
for his memory, but hell! the more we peer at 
him, the more he looks like a youngish chap, 
with beard as black as coal, not a thread o’ 
silver in’t. 

“It’s true!” cried Pentland desperately. 
“My friends, I am a wanderer such as Cain, 
not cursed as he was, but sent adrift by my 
own folly. I was born in 1781.” 

An old man fumbled for his cane, got 
slowly to his feet, and Pentland burst out 
frantically, 

“Sit down and listen, for the love of God! 
I’m going mad from pent-up woe! I’ve got to 




WANDERER 


309 


talk. Listen while I tell you how I became a 
parasite first to my mother, then to my wife, 
until the hand of Fate wrenched me from the 
host and threw me lonely and solitary into 
the Maelstrom. I—” 

A second old man rose up to go, and Pent- 
land cried out imploringly, 

“Don’t go, oh please don’t go! Don’t stare! 
don’t shake your heads! Let’s talk, so I’ll 
forget myself. I’ve decided that it’s talk that 
rules the world. Men are only the pawns of 
Idea. Do you think the universe is founded on 
a plan? I deny that it is, but—don’t go! I’m 
shrivelling up for lack of friendliness! Don’t 
go, oh for the love of gentle Christ, don’t go!” 

One by one the old men got to their feet: 
it’s dangerous to linger in the nearness of a 
madman, for all at once, b’god, a tooth could 
flash right out and rend ye! Madman is bad, 
liar is bad, the combination is a double plague, 
and so away! Sticks putter over the ground, 
exploring the toilsome way for shaky feet to 
follow, hobble hobble and shuffle shuffle, off 
across the park to other benches under a 
gently-sighing palm, safe from the menace of 
the queer one. 




310 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


The queer one was left alone, there in the 
sunshine bright and warm a little while ago, 
but now a pale wan flood lacking heat, lacking 
hope. He groans, and feels a little better, and 
in the ecstasy of his misery he finds the 
strength to lift his head and glower upon the 
wobbly ones across the park. Fools! oh why 
do they pick on Arthur Pentland? Yes, why? 
Tell Mama on them, Arthur dear, for you 
have a right to the friendship of the aged, 
a right, I say, bestowed by whoever hangs 
rights upon our Christmas Tree. You were 
a man when they were puling infants,—why 
can’t you prove it? Go to a doctor and get 
him to give you a hint of some disease, some 
recommending weakness to show these ancient 
ones, and thus win back their confidence. 
That is a very interesting suggestion, said 
Pentland quickly. 

“H’m, I congratulate you,” said the doctor. 
“Sound as a dollar. Organs working as nicely 
as an automobile factory. Great invention, 
this new-fangled thing they call the automo¬ 
bile. Yes, good investment for an insurance 
company, I’d call you. Sound as a dollar.” 

“But I’m restless! I—” 




WANDERER 


311 


“Imagination! Imagination! Lots of it 
nowadays. Kind of a fad. First mesmerism, 
and then phrenology, and now imagination. 
Take some calomel.” 

“But I tell you I’m irritable. I can’t seem 
to get in step with life.” 

“Imagination, I tell you, imagination! 
You’ll outgrow it. Used to be bothered with 
it m’self, but golf and my wife took it out of 
me. You’re all right. Sound as a dollar. 
Good-bye!” 


VI 

Sound as a dollar and good-bye, out of the 
doctor’s office and away, striding, stalking 
wearily, sick from the woe of life, wishing 
praying hoping, longing for escape out of this 
world of pain, cursing the name of God, for 
if there were a God, why he would take me 
from this intolerable— 

—a roar, a rush, a crash, and Pentland felt 
himself hurled to the ground, his brain torn 
loose from sense, his body crushed, destroyed. 

Dizziness succeeded to this rude shock. 

He sank away to soft gray nothingness, 
luxurious impotence, far from the madding 





312 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


world, swooning to the land that lies beyond 
this life on earth, and with the shred of mind 
still left to him he yielded up a prayer of 
thanks, that God had answered him, and this 
was Death. 

Death! death with its eternity so different 
from the one he had known,—how sweet this 
was, this blissful drifting out into space on 
soft soft clouds, no struggle, no pain, no bitter 
memories, oh how delightful! Serenity and 
peace and calm content at last, all for him, in 
everlasting abundance, yet presently he felt a 
tiny sting, another and another, and after that 
a million sharp prickly slashes, a tingling 
jangling soreness, dartings of pain through 
feet and legs, with dizzy cloudinesses pressing 
down upon his brain, a burden surging and 
heaving in sickly vomit, as slowly he came 
pulsing drifting back to earth: a crowd stood 
around him; he heard the crash of voices, 

“Lucky for you.” 

“Street car hit you.” 

“Narrow escape, I’d call it.” 

With a moan he tried to sink back, but 
something held him to a sitting posture. Dully 
he turned his eyes, and saw that an arm was 




WANDERER 


313 


supporting him, a great powerful manly arm, 
clothed in tweed. He jerked about to see 
whose arm it was, and swooned away, and 
when he came drifting back to earth again, 
the arm had gone. 

“Lucky for you.” 

“Street car hit you.” 

“Narrow escape, I’d call it.” 

Pentland burst into tears; the people began 
to cluck their sympathy. 

“He’s scared,” said some one. 

He got to his feet, pushed through the 
staring circle, and strode away without a word. 

“Wretch!” screamed some one, “not even 
to thank folks for savin’ his life!” 

It was a strong voice, but the wretch never 
turned. He only went on along the road, the 
road that led to Creepie. 

VII 

It was a day knee-deep in June—thus all 
love stories should begin—and Pentland had 
been trudging along the road since dawn. Over 
hill and dale he went, through a little valley 
and just beyond, and heard the happy shouts 




314 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


of human beings and the howling of a beast, 
—the two seem to go together. 

He looked, and saw a little dog with a tin 
can tied just right to furnish, as it beat upon 
the ground, a kind of music for his flying feet; 
behind him ran three guffawing louts, laboring 
to keep the fun in sight. The fun darted to 
a bush, halting there to gape with trembling 
dismay upon the mysterious destiny which fol¬ 
lowed at his tail, a noisy horror that he could 
not leave behind. The louts ran up to stir 
him on to make another tune, then Pentland 
took a hand, or rather he gave it, and the big¬ 
gest fellow took it, full in the mouth. Down 
he went with an awful thud; up dashed 
another, and down went he; the music now 
was made by Pentland’s fist on rustic noses. 

‘Til break every bone; you’ve got!” he 
announced, a prospect holding so little lure 
for the three, that they hastily backed off. 

As for Pentland, he said a good deal about 
their deserts, and started on his way. Started! 
but halted, for there was something that stayed 
his foot: a dirty ragged head, with two great 
brown eyes pleading. 

“Be off!” cried Pentland, and started on. 




WANDERER 


315 


Started on, so he did, but to the tune of 
tinny scraping as the little beast came slink¬ 
ing after him, and to the tune of voices warn¬ 
ing him that he’s our dog, and don’t ye coax 
him olf, by heck! 

At this the wanderer turned around, and 
just to annoy these boorish country persons he 
cut the string that once bound dog to can, and 
started on again, walking as one who’s buried 
deep in thought, until he heard the patter 
patter behind him: he whirled around and 
cried out gruffly, 

“Stay back, I say! Why are you pestering 
me? I have no home to take you to. There’s 
nothing in me for you. Begone!” 

Once more the wanderer set off down the 
road; so did the little dog, at which Pentland 
was suddenly so weak and full of trembling 
that he sank down along the roadside. The 
beast crawled up to him and crept into his 
lap, pleading with his eyes that he might stay 
there in Heaven, quivering so violently that 
Pentland’s hand went straying to his head, and 
Pentland’s voice said gruffly, oh very very 
gruffly, 

“What’s the trouble? Did they hurt you? 




316 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


No doubt, for there are scars on your head and 
neck and your body, too. They’re hidden by 
the hair, but they’re there just the same, just 
as there are wounds in my hidden heart. Stop 
licking my hand! Get down!” 

He pushed the dog out of his lap, then see¬ 
ing that passers-by were staring, he snarled, 

“There’s humanity for you! A procession 
of idiots, one after the other, a myriad atoms 
hurtling in a chaos, each with its inner will 
as impulse, and all their wills in conflict, and 
no over-power, no check save the prod and 
push and momentary balance of their mutual 
opposition! Chaos which breeds life! Well, 
it’s bred life in me! Once I was almost in¬ 
different to these atoms, blandly despised 
them, no more than that, but wandering 
among them brings me the friction that heats 
my passivity to urgent life! I, too, am be¬ 
come an atom with an inner impulse, and 
mine is hate!” 

With a grandiose sweep of his arm he said 
to the staring dog, 

“A reeling chaos of mad atoms, behold the 
world, and in it Arthur Pentland with his 
venom, his hate gleaming in opposition upon 




WANDERER 


317 


all men, and happy if he can thwart them! 
Well, all things recur in time and chance will 
swing the unprotected belly of the world to¬ 
ward me, if only I wait long enough. As for 
you, I’ll keep you just because these swine 
think it queer that a man with a beard on his 
face and a cur at his heel chooses to walk the 
road, while they roar along in their motor 
cars! Come along!” 

He rose to go, paused, gazed down upon the 
dog, saying, oh not so very gruffly, 

‘Til call you Creepie, because you crept 
into my lap.” 


VIII 

Pentland called him Creepie, and the dog 
was happy, thinking the name beautiful, more 
wondrous fair than Percy Charles or Stag- 
mont Junior or Harold Frankincense the 
Fourth! It was a joy to have a name of any 
kind, just think! a pair of syllables for his 
ear alone, a call to bring him darting up to 
have a bit of meat from Pentland, from that 
strange ageless wanderer whose heart lay dead 
—so he maintained—he who pronounced the 
name of Creepie harshly, yet sometimes as they 




318 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


sat together, away from the sight of man, not 
so harshly after all. 

Creepie! A silly name, but then he was a 
silly dog, a motley neither black nor brown, 
nor yellow, spotted or a tan, a garbled messy 
color of a dog, a wretch of a mongrel con¬ 
ceived in midnight raid upon an unwatched 
sheepfold, born in an alley, outside the holy 
bonds of kennel and canine pedigree, of two 
divergent strains themselves deep mixtures, a 
beast out of the ancient line of bastardy by 
chance, a scrap of all low life clept by the 
name of dog, cringing against the earth be¬ 
cause he knew himself to be a vile and worth¬ 
less thing, fit only to crawl in slime upon his 
belly, an empty vessel containing but one 
thing,—let’s call it love. 

Love! it is a cheap and common thing, per¬ 
haps that’s why Creepie had so much of it. 
For so he had. The days passed by and as 
they passed, his eyes held less of pain and fear. 
Confusion went out of them, until at last they 
showed a calm and shining light, a liquid gaze 
so passionate, so soft, mostly so when it settled 
on stern cold Pentland. Love Creepie had in 
great abundance, and generously he gave it, 




WANDERER 


319 


the silly silly, for you see he was not a human, 
but a dog, a beast adoring, without question 
or complaint, his sun moon stars and planetary 
master. Creepie followed him on and on, and 
when the wanderer sat down by the road and 
drooped his head, the silly dog with the silly 
name came up and licked his hand,—a simple 
act, you say, but one of power, for Pentland 
trembled and gave a cry, oh how surprising! 

“Little beast,” he cried, “you comfort me, 
but you cannot really help me, so do not try. 
Since Laura died my heart is only a black 
foul cavern where I live with hate, regret, 
and bitter memory. So many sad dull years 

of this.and yet sometimes, as now 

.there is a hint of growth in me. 

The years pass by, and outwardly I remain 
the same. I thought the shoots of my life were 

stunted to deadness.but perhaps 

they’re only clipped. They seem to be 

strengthening.pushing up through 

the dross of habit.as if I were 

awakening from somnambulism! 

“Yes, but if I am, it is to no purpose, little 
friend, for like that bush out there I’m locked 
to sterility. Just see, my Creepie, all about 








320 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


us spring is surging to its blossom, but not 
that bush, for last autumn the birds came and 
ate its buds, pecked out its eyes, and now 
though it is full of sap that swells and aches, 
it cannot grow, because it has no eyes,—and 
so of your unhappy master, Creepie. My 
swelling ache is fast becoming horrible, a 
thing that’s fed from some deep primordial 
hidden source, but there’s no vent, no outlet. 
There are no apertures for growth to push up 
through. How strange to talk of growth 
through eyes. A figure of speech, and yet I 
wonder.” 

Creepie licked his hand, and Pentland cried 
out brokenly, 

“Silly beast, I pronounce you greater than 
humanity, because you have a heart, and man 
has none. People are only beasts, and though 
I love you a little, no one else shall have a 
friendly word from me. I curse the world and 
all within it! I curse myself, blind bush with 
eyes pecked out, I who can see only muddle 
where Laura saw the promise of order, light, 
and harmony! Oh what is wrong with me! 
What makes my brain reel so! What makes 
my heart give such a kick, like a child 





WANDERER 


321 


within the womb! Great God, I’m going mad! 
There is no new life growing in me! It’s only 
a tumor, an ever-gnawing ever-growing evil 
for which there is no cure, but when I walk I 
have a little ease, so let us go, my friend, and 
seek another place, though I have seen them 
all. Come, Creepie, we must go.” 

IX 

And so they went upon their way, restless 
Pentland, faithful Creepie, the two of them 
together. Did I say two ? Not two, but three: 
Pentland, Creepie, and another, one unseen 
and yet was there,—and Creepie no longer 
skipped and barked at Pentland’s feet. 

66 Why Creepie, what’s the matter? Are 
you hungry?” 

Not hungry, but something was wrong. 
Pentland took him to a wise man. 

“Nothing wrong with him,” yawned the 
doctor, “except that he’s getting old.” 

Nothing, except that he was getting old. 
That was all, but it was enough, for it seemed 
as if Pentland would fall as he stumbled 
through the door with Creepie in his arms,— 
but no, he made it. He got to the street, and 




322 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


gazed about, and saw a road, a highway run¬ 
ning far into the distance, a road to be trav¬ 
elled, and so as one who walks in dream he 
set one foot after the other, shaking, quiver¬ 
ing, murmuring, 

“No, no, no! He cannot die. I won’t let 
him die!” 

Won’t let him die! Pentland won’t let him 
die! Stand back, Fleshless One, I am Man 
and I am clever! I take a tiny blanket of silk 
and wool and fasten it on Creepie’s little 
back, and then I pay a learned specialist to 
arrange a diet for him, and then I get some 
little shoes for doggy footies when the way is 
rough, so so. Come let us go! 

Onward, for though the dog is withering in 
the grip of the invisible hand, Pentland must 
go on. Ah! the master is such a restless one, 
—what is his destination? No doubt it lies 
in the far and distant West, but when our 
footsteps bring us to the western sea, we circle 
round and turn our faces east again. Well! 
then the goal is in the East, and yet somehow 
it’s not, nor in the South, nor in the North, 
as round and back and forth over the broad 
wide land America we wend our way. 




WANDERER 


323 


A senseless way? Perhaps it is, at least 
it is barren of result, for although the master 
has a question that he puts to all he meets, 
no answer gives him satisfaction. To fools 
called wise, and sages known as fools, to these 
and many more he puts the self-same question: 
some laugh at him, some stare, some hand out 
their nonsense syllables, and Pentland goes 
on, striding the land from coast to coast, up 
mountain road, over bridges high above tem¬ 
pestuous rivers, lingering a while on storm¬ 
bound prairie but on at last, into all the corners 
of the mighty land America, seeking an answer 
to his question,—the little dog behind him. 

Oh! master is so restless, never still for very 
long, always walking treading pacing, jerking 
even in his sleep, muttering in his dreams of 
how at last he knows he’s seeking Truth, a 
needle on which he’ll pierce all that’s diffuse 
and contradictory, and with a single thread 
turn the welter to unity and pattern. Oh 
master! I’m your Creepie and I love you, but 
though I follow at your heel, I’m a puppy 
no more, but an old old dog with grizzling 
hair and falling teeth, and stiffened in the 
joints and blinded by a kind of glaze, until 




324 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


it’s hard to see you. I follow, but now I can¬ 
not seem to make my legs go on. Oh that 
a dog should whimper and complain, and yet 
I must, or else be left behind. Master! 

It was a very tiny little bark, but Pentland 
whirled and ran back quick, to pick him up 
and carry him, to save his legs, and check 
the shadows marching round the sundial, a 
pointless march, save that it’s sapping life 
away. Sapping life away, away, and Creepie 
licks the master’s face, and Pentland’s face 
is wet, though from another cause. 0 twisted 
bleary little dog, I weep for you. Oh do not 
die! I need you so. Without you I’ll be all 
alone, more so than ever in my life before. I 
wish that I could grow old and die with you, 
but it cannot be. By destiny I am bound to 
Life, not Death.” 

This and much more said Pentland as he 
went upon his way, the dog held tight in his 
arms to keep him from the Fleshless One. In 
secret whispers he presently spoke in quite 
another strain, and Creepie felt the love no 
longer in disguise within that stony man, and 
nestled in his arms, content. Creepie nestled 
there and Pentland murmured and caressed 




WANDERER 


325 


him, and the little dog, he who had been so 
long in pain, complained no more, no, not in 
this world, for having played his role he had 
departed to another place, a place of myth, so 
some folks say, but I say this, that if the dumb 
four-foots that I have loved possess no soul, 
then I have none, nor wish for one. 

X 

Sixteen years at the heels of Arthur Pent- 
land, a dog! a mangy cur! a dirty bastard with 
a silly name and of no breed, no breed at all 
save from all breeds, a scarred and ugly beast 
crawling up out of the matrix of primeval 
slime, to follow the man who cannot die, six¬ 
teen long years,—and died. 

He died, and Pentland turned aside, off 
from the road, to bury Creepie, returning to 
the earth the fragment lifted from it for a mo¬ 
ment’s breath, digging a grave with his own 
hands, factus homo! clawing to the breast 
of mother earth, and not seeing very well, for 
tears are blinding and so hot, they come in 
bitter scalding floods, that’s how tears come 
when we are desolated. Books say it’s weak 
for men to shed tears, but here there are no 




326 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


books, no rules of etiquette, no straight- 
jackets for a bursting heart, and Arthur Pent- 
land weeps. He weeps and brokenly he 
murmurs, 

“Little dog, I named you Creepie in the 
long ago; you crept into my lap and then into 
my heart. I loved my mother and my wife, 
but for you, Creepie, my love was different. 
It seemed so intimate and of myself, and yet 
it hinted at a surge beyond myself, and be¬ 
yond you, also, a kind of tremulous aspiration, 
as of a tendril uncurling from its stalk, reach¬ 
ing out toward heights as far from me as I 
myself am far from that profound abysmal 
source from which it sprang. I was a starvel¬ 
ing, then your love came to build a channel 
to the reservoir, showing me a new umbilicus, 
from which I had great nourishment, till 
Death strode up and cut the cord.” 

He hid his face in his hands, 

“Oh Creepie! you are at peace, but I am 
doomed to go on floundering in the viscous 
mire of Time, plunging and thrashing,—I’m 
weary. It’s taught me the depth and possi¬ 
bilities of the field of Life, but when am I to 
drift up out of the fog of sleep to wakeful- 




WANDERER 


327 


ness? When am I to see the ordered sense 
so often hinted at? Miserable little dog, your 
existence was preferable to mine. I the aris¬ 
tocrat! Aristocrat! Good God, we were all 
a type! a generic form stamped by the die of 
circumstance! moulded to one series by con¬ 
vention and tradition! Our class was but a 
troupe of selfsame manikins, against which 
lurched democracy, to break the vessel hold¬ 
ing us, let out its uniform ingredients, and 
they, dividing! parting! found their way to 
earth, to take on the peculiarities that breed 
up individuals. What! Am I spilled upon 
the earth? Am I to leave off being a type, and 
become myself?” 

He beat his fists against his brow, moaning, 
drawing in quick little breaths, his face 
a-tremble with the surge of thought, and now 
he blurted out, 

“Old vessel aristocracy, what a bloodless 
shell it was! And what was its destruction 
but a concrete example to illustrate a larger 
later abstruse conception? .... The grander 
trend is toward the breaking down of Heaven’s 
shell, that men may flee the narrow unreality 
of creed! flee the somnambulism of ritual! 





328 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


escape back to earth, and. there awaken and 
spring into action as individuals! All at once 
it dawns upon me that my span from birth 
till now has also been the span of profound 
change in man’s regard for Heaven: I’ve seen 
the thirst for immortality decline, supplanted 
by human aims on earth. In this unheralded 
shift, perhaps there’s comfort—Christ! how 
can there be comfort? For me there is no 
comfort.” 

His puzzling thoughtful face was convulsed 
with rage, 

“What a grim sardonic jest! This trend 
can only lead to greater horror! We abandon 
Heaven and turn to earth, but to what pur¬ 
pose? To none at all, for when we cleave to 
the things of this world, we’re tricked into 
loving what must wither in our hand. I feel 
suspicion’s prod in me, for though there is no 
plan to life, yet in the fact that I was lured to 
love this little beast only to have him die, I 
see a sentient hand! There is no God in 
Heaven! There is no Satan in Hell! But 
there is some thing, some one who’s torturing 
me, me! the man who cannot die!” 

He seized a stick and swung it wide in 




WANDERER 


329 


menace, crying in a voice half snarl half bel¬ 
low, 

“I say there’s something jerking me here 
and jerking me there, and though I talk to 
space, and rave as madmen rave, I seem to 
see a hidden cavern where my evil genius 
lurks and mocks me! You mock me, eh? By 
God, come out! and though you loom as devil, 
fiend and superman, I’ll tear you limb from 
limb, and stamp your eyeballs into mud, turn 
out your blood, and laugh to see you suffer, 
as you have laughed at me! Come forth! 
Reveal yourself and be destroyed! Declare 
your name, you great Unknown!” 

With these impassioned words he sprang to 
his feet, gasping, trembling, growling, glaring 
red-eyed in all directions, searching for his foe, 
challenging the jester, but as he sent his stare 
over all that broad and sunny landscape, there 
was nothing to be seen, and nothing to be 
heard—ah wait! there was a sound, a faint 
one, a far away and distant murmur, a kind of 
weak attenuated humming, an imaginary 
sound, no doubt, no doubt. 

Imaginary sound! No sound at all! At 
least so Pentland thought, for with a sob he 




330 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


turned to the grave again, sank to his knees 
and said farewell to Creepie. A long long 
time he lingered there, but at last he rose and 
with his dragging and despairing feet he 
stumbled toward the road, and stumbled on 
his way. The road led through a wood: there 
were no houses, but Pentland didn’t mind the 
lonely place, for he was intent upon the seeth¬ 
ing company of his thoughts, 

6 ‘Manipulation! that’s it! I am a puppet 
on a string, jerked to a snare! I see the point¬ 
less repetition of my life is but a blind to hide 
my destination until it is too late. The hellish 
scheme is showing clear! It is a noose that’s 
drawing tight about me! I struggle and hold 
back, but there are barbs in back of me. Oh 
horror that I be prodded on to do the very 
thing I loathe, to open up my soul to man¬ 
kind’s knock! Where is my rancor now? 
Where is the bottomless gut in which for years 
and decades I’ve been storing up my poisonous 
venom, awaiting a chance to vomit forth with 
best effect! I thought my hate was strong, 
but all at once it’s sick despair. Some thing, 
some one has touched me, reducing me to 
utter weakness! Who is it? Who’s is the 




WANDERER 


331 


hand so long manipulating from a secret spot, 
sending sorrow upon sorrow, but no mercy, no 
hope! Who are you, pitiless one? Come 
forth! Reveal yourself! Declare your name, 
you great Unknown!” 

Muttering groaning in this wild delirious 
fashion, giving vent to such unheard of fancy, 
he stumbled on and on, upon a road that lay 
upon a plain, and as he wandered, lo! the 
sun was sinking swiftly and the twilight com¬ 
ing on, twilight and after that the dusk with 
its softly silent, all enfolding shadows. It 
was a time of day for worse, not better sight, 
but Pentland in the gloom was lifting up his 
head, as one upon whom breaks a ray of long- 
sought bright illumination. Rage had gripped 
him and fled, despair had followed after, the 
note within him now was something else, 

“Once I called and got no answer! Again 
I called and got no answer! This third time I 
lift my voice, seeking to know of him who 
knows, does twilight stand at either end of 
waking life, or only at one? I am moved like 
a dummy, but I could endure if only the 
Player would assure me that the earth on 
which I move is a chessboard, and if my pains 




332 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


as wanderer are incident to progress, the nec¬ 
essary thrusts received in a game that leads to 
victory, not defeat. The spleen I kept within 
my bones so long, 0 God! it can’t be sweet¬ 
ened now, or if it can, how can it? 

“How can it? I feel it can, and yet I doubt! 
I’m torn between what has been and what is 
to be, and as a consequence I’m bleeding raw. 
Why is it that with every halting step forward 
I am jerked back! I must know, for if this 
wrenching between the old and the new does 
not yield Pentland to the one or the other very 
soon, I am lost! Deep in my soul wonder is 
dawning, and hope, too, and courage to go 
on. I cry out in distress of it—it’s sweet, but 
it frightens me! What is the aim, the end, 
the point and purpose of it all? I ask in all 
humility, of him who weaves my destiny! Oh 
it is time I saw you face to face! Come forth! 
Reveal yourself! Declare your name, you 
great Unknown!” 

Thus calling in a softly pleading voice, 
Pentland gazed about in expectation. He 
looked, and saw the darkness spreading o’er 
the plain: he was alone. He listened, but 
heard no sound, save only a faint one, a far 




WANDERER 


333 


away and distant murmur, and presently not 
so far away, a distant, coming-closer murmur, 
a humming stronger and more strong, till lo! 
piercing the darkness of the night he saw a 
gleam of light, and two, a pair of great lumi¬ 
nous eyes which swept the plain and searched 
for Arthur Pentland, a Thing that glided closer 
and more closely up. 

And seeing this, he was afraid. He trem¬ 
bled, his lips turned white, and as the auto¬ 
mobile came bounding toward him, closer, 
closer, he turned and ran, confused and terri¬ 
fied, ran stumbling falling rising, not knowing 
where he went, save that he was fleeing the 
dazzling brilliance of those eyes. Suddenly 
they were gone, but still he ran, now sick at 
heart, not knowing what he wanted, until he 
saw rise up before him a building, and on the 
front of it a sign declaring that here were beds 
for rent, that weary ones might rest. 

XI 

Shown to his room, he fell across the bed, 
and sank into a heavy slumber, seeming as one 
who never more would waken, that kind of 
sleep. A long long sleep, profound and very 




334 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


deep, all night slumbering there with his face 
so strangely calm, never moving when the 
clock struck ten, never twitching at eleven, at 
rest before and after midnight. Through the 
early morning hours, too, he lay there, sleep¬ 
ing still when the dawn came spreading, a 
slow insidious spreading of new light, a twi¬ 
light of the night and day, for twilight lies at 
either end of waking life. 

Slow spreading came the dawn of that new 
day, a cool and dewy day in springtime, when 
all the air is briskly filling with a host of fresh 
upspringing odors, and then from out of the 
clean and cloud-swept skies, out from the very 
heart of heaven, a little breeze came stirring, 
a tremulous airy breath, invisible messenger 
that stirred the dirty curtain at the dirty win¬ 
dow, the dirty pillow of the dirty bed, there 
where Pentland lay. 

Messenger unminded, and after a while it 
went away, and the morning air was very still, 
until from somewhere outside that cheap hotel, 
out in some tree, some glen, some bush, there 
was a bird that sang. There on the bed lay 
Arthur Pentland, never hearing, at which the 
bird sang louder, a voice of pure untarnished 




WANDERER 


335 


melody that told of promise and a brighter 
hope and love,—so sang the thrush and 
wakened Pentland. 

His eyes opened very slowly; he looked 
about and moaned and sank back on the pil¬ 
low. To drift away into another dream of 
bliss, such was his wish, but the hidden thrush 
sang oh! so piercingly, calling as a herald 
calls, rousing life to the dawn, urging to the 
tasks of that new day, a new day, Pentland, 
ah! never was there such a day as this, not in 
your long and weary life. 

Again he slowly opened wide his eyes, and 
now he seemed to know a bird was singing, 
seemed to realize it was a thrush, just such a 
one as many years ago sang in a certain gar¬ 
den, back there in old-time Philadelphia, when 
Laura came to him. Oh! the thrush’s song 
was wondrous then, inspiriting and full of 
courage, a trumpet full of happiness, but this 
was mockery, a taunt, a madness beyond all 
bearing. Pentland sat up in bed, crying, 

“Go ’way! Go ’way!” 

Yet only louder and more bravely sang the 
bird, insistent, pouring out its vision of what 
that new fine day would be, at which a raging 




336 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


fury seized on Pentland: he sprang from the 
bed and seized the pitcher from the stand, he 
gnashed his teeth and cried, 

“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you dead, and then 
I’ll have a little rest!” 

Crying this he rushed across the room and 
glared out through the window, and saw no 
bird. No bird at all, but something there 
across the street he saw, a figure standing as 
one who pauses just in passing, and Pentland 
was transfixed, for what he saw was this: a 
man, blond in the face and broad of shoulder, 
a ruddy man, a great and powerful figure 
exuding strength, virility, and force, a man 
dressed in a suit of tweed. 





The Blind Alley And 

The Eye 










I 


One last wrench with the razor, and he 
paused to stare into the mirror: his features 
were full and strong, the lips red, the hair 
black as night, the jaw tenacious and the nose 
bold,—it was a handsome face, but not a 
happy one, and as he stood and rubbed his 
smooth-shaven cheeks his pale eyes gleamed 
with ferocity. His lips writhed back from the 
teeth in a snarl, then with an oath he snatched 
up his hat and strode from the room. Now for 
the stuff that drowns trouble till it’s dead! 

Out into the street he goes, grim and more 
grim with every stare that greets his question. 
But go on, Pentland, never mind the smiles 
that answer you! You only have to follow 
those who know—you see, I told you true, 
for there’s a door and right inside, well! see 
for yourself: the bar and the fiery stuff behind 
it. And now begin, remembering what you’ve 
sworn: here’s an end to declamation on the 
theme of love and sick soul and destiny and 
339 


340 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


all that. From here on it’s drink and drink, 
until all your woe is drowned. Drown it, 
Pentland, drown it! Destroy the fish with 
water! Oppress the bird with air! Have a 
drink! 


II 

He did, and had another and a third one, 
whereupon his face began to flush, and he 
turned to glower upon the soggy hulks that 
sat there guzzling: one of these was forlorn 
and ragged and a sot, full of belated tears and 
maudlin talk; he sucked up what others left 
behind, reeling along the bar, 

“I’m drunk, by God! I’m nothin’ but a 
beast, but say! you guys, there was a time 
when I was Mister to the world. I loved a 
woman, but Fate came up and wrenched her 
from me!” 

“Shut up!” cried Pentland. 

“I’m drunk, and nothin’ but a driftin’ hulk, 
but while She lived, I was a man! Gimme a 
drink, fella, and I’ll sing fer you, er better 
still, I’ll now recite the great American classic, 
entitled, gents, The Face Upon The Barroom 
Floor!” 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


341 


“Shut up, you ass!” cried Pentland, and 
threw his whiskey on the bum. 

“ ’Smatter?” babbled this one, staggering 
close. “Say, don’ git sore. Judy O’Grady an’ 
the Dutchy Lady’s sisters under the skin, like 
you an’ me, ole pal. Why, we’re brothers! 
Come on and kiss me!” 

“Stand back, you swine, you filthy sot, you 
drunken beast! I loathe you, you and your 
class and your very species! Come one step 
nearer and I’ll split your head for you.” 

“Want to fight, huh? Aw right, by damn, 
it’s all the same to me. My name is Bob 
Heath, you cock-eyed swell, and I kin knock 
yer block off—just watch me!” 

He lunged at Pentland and Pentland struck 
at him. They twisted and surged and ducked 
and dodged, struck blows and got them. The 
bartender took a jovial hand, somebody took 
another, bottles supplanted fists, oh what a 
fracas! A good time being had by all—a 
whistle—a shout of cops, and Pentland fled, 
though not until he’d knocked his brother to 
the floor, jumped on him, kicked him in the 
face, the face upon the barroom floor, then 
he ran, out through a storeroom, into the 
street, brass-buttons close behind. 




342 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Duck in here,” cried a low sharp voice. 
“Quick!” 

He saw a door, a face, a beckoning finger, 
and whirled in answer to the invitation. There 
was a hum, a roar, and what he had leaped 
into sprang away, leaving the policeman to 
scratch his head and curse at bums who make 
their escape by automobile, in this case a 
speedy car driven by a youngish man, dapper, 
hat on the side of his head, a careless mouth, 

“Give ’em the slip, I guess. What was the 
row, anyhow?” 

“A fight.” 

“Fight, eh? Did ye beat him up?” 

“I did,” growled Pentland. “I beat him 
up, as I would like to do every human creature 
if I—” 

“I like a fight m’self once in a while,” the 
other laughed, steering deftly through the 
crowded streets. “Puts a kick in life, an’ 
keeps a fellow from gittin’ stale at his work. 
I’m a auto salesman—what’s your business?” 

“I have none.” 

“Wheeoooo! Rich chap, eh? Lucky cuss, 
I wish I had your chance. My folks had money 
once—they come from ’way back East some- 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


343 


where—Dillon’s my name, Edward Dillon 
—we don’t amount to much any more, but our 
family was swells once, very refined, too, they 
tell me. Jesus! did ye see that close call? If 
we’d hit that post, we’d have been in Hell by 
now!” 

“Then turn back and try again!” cried 
Pentland. “I’ve tried to kill myself, but some¬ 
how I can’t. You try for me. Go to it, bang 
against the next post you see!” 

“Ha ha ha ha! You don’t mean that, I 
guess. It’s a wonderful old world, if ye don’t 
weaken. But say! we’re gittin’ out of town. 
I’ll turn back now. Where’ll I take ye?” 
“To Hell.” 

“Ho ho ho ho! You’re full of moonshine, 
boy. To Hell? Say! if I was a rich guy like 
you, I’d have a time. I bet you’re kiddin’ me, 
makin’ believe you’re the cuss that put the 
blue in sea water. What you need’s a change.” 

“A change! If only there could be a 
change, it might be that I’d have some rest. 
It’s the sameness of all things that’s driving 
me mad. I’m like one of your damned automo¬ 
biles, sound as a dollar, with my engine chug¬ 
ging strong, but though I make a noise I get 




344 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


nowhere at all. I’m a car that’s parked along 
the roadside.” 

“Parked along the roadside!” cried Dillon. 
“Say! you ride with me, and you’ll not think 
you are a parked machine. Say! let’s start 
a little club of good fellows, and raise Hell 
and put a block under it. That’ll make you 
forget your troubles.” 

“I’m a stranger here.” 

“Maybe you are, but I ain’t. I know who 
to invite. There’s Frankie Jones, a wonderful 
guy. We’ll leave out Fred Black, he’s a pill. 
Tom Smith, he’s another wonderful guy, but 
that brother of his we’ll give the cold shoulder, 
he’s a pill. Johnnie Hencher is a wonderful 
guy, we’ll take him, and bounce that ham he 
travels with, he’s another pill. You let me 
do it. I’ll show ye.” 

“Show me, then!” cried Pentland, “but 
hurry! Hurry, before I go mad!” 

III 

Dillon hurried, ran here ran there, spread¬ 
ing among his friends the news of a rich guy 
come to town, one lousy with gold coin and 
sick of life, hence eager to spend to pass the 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


345 


time, opening wide his pocket for trouble¬ 
drowning booze, hooray! News of a certain 
Pentland, a stranger, but what the hell of 
that? he’s rich and a damned good fellow, 
somewhere in his thirties, dressed like a secre¬ 
tary of the Y. M. C. A. at first, but better 
now, new sport clothes that must have cost like 
blazes, and one of them imported hats that 
separates ye from half yer bloody check book. 
Ye ought to see ’im with a cigarette a-hangin’ 
out his mouth, him with the bloodshot eye, 
oh boy! that guy’s raised his hell before. 

Perhaps he has, but now he’ll raise some 
more, because we’re getting up a club of jolly 
chaps. Wonderful guys are wanted, but no 
pills! We call ourselves the Frolickers, and 
it’s our purpose to get the world up in a corner 
and twist its little tail off! Come over here, 
meet Pentland, Pentland of Pittsburgh. 
Sh-h-h, rich as hell, good guy. A little 
queer, but he gets more human when he’s full, 
so let’s fill him up. See how he looks at the 
empty bottle in his hand, despair in his eyes, 
why! that’s because it’s empty! He’s blue 
and wants to drown his troubles, that’s why 
he’s calling in a hoarse loud voice, 




346 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Dillon! More wine! more whiskey!” 

“More whiskey! more wine! and hooray! 
for we’re the Frolickers!” 

“The Frolickers!” cried Pentland. “That’s 
what we are. Life is a frolic, a song and dance, 
a jest! Life is a jest, a cruel and monstrous 
jest, a jest that—” 

“Hooray, that’s the stuff! Life is a frolic, 
and to hell with all long faces, eh, Pentie?” 

“Quite so,” cried Arthur Pentland. “To 
hell with all long faces. Perhaps they’re there 
already, but if they’re not, why down with 
them into the Pit. No bursting hearts are 
wanted here, but only gay and joyous ones. 
We’re the Frolickers, and the world is our—” 

“Our oyster!” roared Dillon, spilling liquor 
down his front. 

“Our oyster!” cried Pentland, “that’s it, 
the world’s our oyster. Some oysters have a 
way of slipping up to bring confusion and dis¬ 
may, but drink like hell and we’ll keep this 
one down. Drown it with liquor, that’s the 
way to conquer grief. Hooray for booze, but 
say! let’s go to another place, just for variety. 
Natura hominum novitatis avida! as old Pliny 
would have it!” 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


347 


“That’s Latin he’s talking,” cried Dillon to 
the others. “He’s been educated, Pentie has, 
just like my folks that used to be back East. 
They studied that stuff themselves, and so did 
I when I was a kid. Amo amas amat , that’s 
the talk we want. My folks petered out when 
they come West, but once upon a time—” 

“Another place!” cried Pentland, fiercely. 
“Let’s go to where there’s more liquor and 
more noise, and more hell to raise, since we’re 
placing blocks under it. I tell you I can’t 
bear it here. I must keep down the oyster 
that’s rising up in me. I must and I will! I 
don’t care what else happens, so long as I can 
flout the world. I loathe and hate the human 
race, I swear I do, and don’t you forget it! 
To hell with all humanity, with babes unborn 
and little children toddling, to fires eternal 
with clear-eyed youth, with girls and boys, 
the callow gawks! To all damnation with 
maidens and their lovers, with freshly-married 
couples and their hopes and dreams, to hell 
with middle age, and as for all those ancient 
ones that scoff at me, and pull away and leave 
me all alone, I wish the hell of hells for them!” 

“Hooray!” cried Dillon, pounding the table 




348 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


in applause, “Now he’s in form. Say! can’t 
he talk? He ought to be a public speaker, 
there’s money in it if ye git on Chautauqua. 
Come on, Pentie, let’s go to where you’ll feel 
your oats and feel ’em stronger. You guys, 
all the rest of you, come on! The Restaurant 
de Super Luxe , that’s where we’ll meet!” 

IV 

Away, and mock the time with fairest show! 
So sang the greatest of American poets, and so 
sang the mighty Frolickers, as they rushed out 
into the street and to their automobiles. Pent- 
land clambered in with Dillon, who laughed 
and shouted out, 

“Say, Pentie, it’s time you learnt to drive. 
Come on, old sport, move over there. You 
can do it. Simple as hell. Grab the wheel. 
I’ll tell you what to do.” 

Pause.fumble.the car 

lurched forward, wobbling crookedly this way 
and that, but moving under Pentland’s hands. 
He was laughing with a strange delight. Dil¬ 
lon cautioned him, 

“Hey, not so much gas, for the love of 
Mike.” 






THE BLIND ALLEY 


349 


More gas at that: the car lunged through 
the crowded street. Dillon yelled and grabbed 
the wheel, 

“For Christ sake, man, you’re drunk. Come 
on, climb back, and let me at it. We’ll learn 
ye when you’re sober. You headed straight 
for that truck, don’t ye know ye did? Hadn’t 
been for me grabbin’ the wheel, we’d o’ been 
in Hell by now. What’s the matter? What 
ye groanin’ for? Sick?” 

“Yes.yes, I’m sick. I tell you I’m 

sick. I’m sick of this and everything, I’m 
sick of life—” 

“There ye go agin! When a fellow talks 
of being sick o’ life, he needs a good stiff drink. 
Wait till we git to where we’re goin’, there’s 
plenty there.” 

With this promise of a cure for his friend’s 
distemper, Dillon steered round a corner and 
past an automobile standing at the curb. 

“That man back there!” cried Pentland. 
“The man we passed just now! Look!” 

Dillon looked, and 

“Well, what of it? A man, that’s all. Ye 
act like it wus a ghost.” 

“Have you ever seen him before?” 





350 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Why, yes, I kinda think I have. Been 
hangin’ around town lately—stranger—same 
as you.” 

“Turn back!” cried Pentland, with chatter¬ 
ing teeth. “Turn back, I say. We’ll run him 
down and break his neck. Turn back!” 

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Why go back and 
start a fuss, when there’s a good time straight 
ahead? He’s just some fool, anyhow.” 

“A fool?” cried Pentland, eagerly. “Are 
you sure he’s just a fool?” 

“Sure thing. I know a fool when I see 
one, don’t I?” 

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha! You’re right, I’ll 
wager you are! He’s a fool, that’s what he is. 
By the way, his car was broken, wasn’t it?” 

“Didn’t notice,” grunted Dillon, slowing at 
a crossing, “but what the hell do we care?” 

“His car was broken, I know it was. He’ll 
never catch us, will he?” 

“Catch us, hell,” answered the auto sales¬ 
man, darting with the traffic. “Say, boy, you 
don’t know what kind of a machine you’re 
ridin’ in. This here’s a Lancelot, the slickest, 
fastest thing on wheels. Comes from the big¬ 
gest factory, made of the best materials, ’s got 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


351 


the smallest upkeep, and the foxiest fixtures, 
and the niftiest engine there ever was, in short, 
by damn, it is the greatest little whiz, the 
pluckiest little bang of a car that’s made, all 
the others are only imitation. That guy back 
there’ll never catch up with us, you bet your 
life on that!” 

“He’ll never catch up with us,” Pentland 
cried again, and then once more, “he’ll never 
catch up with us.” 

“The Lancelot! That’s her name, and say! 
you ought to see her on a hill or in the mud!” 

“We’ve left him far behind. He’ll never 
never catch us now.” 

“It’s the machine, that’s all! A car ye 
can’t git along without. Easy terms, and all 
of that. Whoa! we’re there. Them colored 
lights is where we’re bound for, the Restaurant 
de Super Luxe . Pile out, here come the other 
fellows now.” 


V 

De Super Luxe! with massive shining sil¬ 
ver, and costly flowers, lackeys resplendent in 
uniforms of gold and green, electric lights in 




352 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


great gigantic clusters, lavish decoration every¬ 
where, lest you forget you’re in a place where 
money is no object. A wide wide dining hall, 
and in one corner, half screened off by drapery 
imported at enormous cost from Persia (or 
was it Siam?), there stood a large round table, 
one fit for consecrated knights of the flowing 
bowl: the Frolickers seized it. Sixteen won¬ 
derful guys sat down, then from a bower of 
artificial grapes an orchestra began to play, 
and Pentland scowled to see the place filled 
with smug and prosperous-looking people. 

“Look at those idiots,” he snarled. “Look 
at them, and tell me, where is the home life 
of this damned country gone to? What’s the 
fireside but a name, when people spend their 
time in a vulgar place like this?” 

“Hooray!” cried Dillon, “here comes the 
booze!” 

They had a drink, and seeing that his friend 
was still glaring about, the auto salesman 
laughed, 

“What’re ye lookin’ at, Pentie? Them 
Jews? Say, I don’t blame ye. Why they let 
them yids in here, is more than I can tell. I’m 
Amurican, I am, and I draw the line at beaks 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


353 


like that. Niggers and wops and hunkies, and 
dagoes and guineas and kikes, and all them 
Jews, I got no use for ’em. Amuricans is 
wonderful guys, but foreigners is pills. Jews! 
Say, they’se crooked as a dog’s hind leg, but I 
fixed one once. He tried to jip me on a deal, 
but I sold him a car with a warped frame, 
that’s how I turned the tables on the Israelity 
Hebrew, the Christ-killin’ son-of-a-bitch! 
Tried to cheat me, did he? Well, I done 
’im brown, and he’ll not tackle me again, I 
bet. They can’t cheat me, they can’t, for I’m 
the slickest salesman in our office. I got the 
highest record of them all. I took first prize 
last year. I’ll git it this year, too, or know the 
reason why. Hooray for Eddie Dillon, for 
he’s Amurican! Let’s have a drink.” 

They had a drink and Pentland shuddered, 

"What makes it taste so bitter?” 

"Oh, hell, because of prohibition!” 

"Prohibition?” 

"Sure! This state’s dry, or supposed to 
be, and now, by God, them grafters back in 
Washington have got a law to make the whole 
cussed land dry. Say, they can’t pull that 
stuff on us Amuricans. This is a free country, 




354 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


and it belongs to us. I never did take much 
till the state went dry, but after that I drank 
like hell. I break their crumby law ever’ 
chanst I get. I’m Amurican, and I ain’t goin’ 
to have ’em tell me what I can do and what 
I can’t. Hooray, it’s rotten booze, but then 
it’s booze, and it tastes a damned sight better 
when ye know ye’re guzzlin’ it agin the wishes 
of the law, them that’s always pickin’ on a 
honest hard-workin’ man. Let’s have a drink.” 

They had a drink, and Dillon cried, 

“That’s the way to down it, fellers. Me, 
when I drink I like to drink, see? They say 
them Dutch guys over there across the Pond 
go off under a tree and set and sip their booze 
all ev’nin’. They must be bughouse. The 
way to drink is to open wide yer guzzle, tell 
guts to look out, here she comes, and down it 
at a swaller. When I’m on the water-wagon 
I’m on the water-wagon, and when I drink, I 
go swimmin’ in it, that’s me. I’m Amurican, 
and hooray for the way they drink bad whiskee 
in the land of libertee! Say, what the hell, 
Pentie, old man! I thought ye wus laughin’, 
but I’ll be damned if ye don’t look like ye wus 
cryin’. What’s the matter?” 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


355 


Pentland lifted his head, and showed his 
eyes all flashing wet, 

“The toothache! The toothache! that’s all! 
A silly thing to cry about, isn’t it? It hurts, 
but if I say it’s gone, it’ll disappear, won’t it? 
Ha ha ha ha ha! The way to be happy is to 
ignore all else, eh? Ha ha ha ha ha ha! And 
haven’t we a right to happiness ? Haven’t we ? 
Answer me, damn you, answer me!” 

“We have!” cried the wonderful guy, 
Frankie Jones. 

“A right to happiness!” cried the wonder¬ 
ful guy, Tommy Smith. 

“The Constitution says so!” cried the won¬ 
derful guy, Johnnie Hencher. 

“Hooray!” cried Edward Dillon, most won¬ 
derful guy of all. “So say we all of us, and 
I’ll add this: there’s happiness in every bottle! 
Booze is a cure for all the ills that am, and 
some that ain’t! Fill up yer glasses, gents, 
the ev’nin’ ain’t begun.” 

The orchestra had struck up, the center of 
the floor was filling with couples, and Pent- 
land took another drink. Sweet wondrous 
jazzy jazz that sent ladies shuddering against 
their partners, sent partners pantomiming act 




356 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


that leads to more of us, and Pentland 
trembled, 

“This liquor’s unnerving me, Dillon. I’m 
all a-quiver. Great God, there’s something 
wrong with me.” 

Chuckling whispering auto salesman, 

“You horny cuss, I’ll pick you a good one. 
See that little short one there? What d’ye 
say?” 

“What do I say?” cried Pentland savagely, 
“I say to hell with such as she! There was a 
time when women were modest, possessing 
charm and grace, women worthy of respect and 
reverence, but that was in the ancient past, 
so long ago that to you of this disgusting age 
they seem as fabulous as the sailor Sinbad. 
They’ve vanished, lingering only in my tor¬ 
tured memory, and these—they’re sluts!” 

“You’re crazy,” said Frankie Jones. 

“That’s the why they make ’em nowadays,” 
said Tommy Smith. 

“Look at that tall blond over there,” said 
Johnnie Hencher. 

“Some wheel base!” said Eddie Dillon. 
“What more could ye want?” 

“Sluts!” cried Pentland. “So I pronounce 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


357 


the modern girl. Undersized and misbegotten 
runts, they reek with a smell perfume can 
never down! Non bene olet , qui bene semper 
olet , I’ll wager that! Bobbed hair! so that I 
see a sexless and untidy neck that sends a 
shudder over me, a shudder rooting in the 
instinct of repulsion. Monsters! Boy-girls 
is what they are, hermaphrodites affecting 
dresses, they make me want to vomit. They’re 
not women!” 

“The hell they ain’t! You lay out with 
one and see!” 

“I’d sooner touch a leper!” cried Pentland. 
“They’re prostitutes, whores and harridans, 
rifled of their charms at puberty, at twenty 
wise in vile excesses. Not women, but clearly 
female, for what was once kept privately is 
now the deed before all eyes. Right in the 
street they comb their hair and adjust their 
shoulder straps, and paint their faces like a 
mask. They love innovation! Well, here’s 
one: a bit of tissue in their purse, and then 
there’ll be no need to get in off the street at 
all. Look at that one! halting to shift her 
hose and show the bare flesh up above! No 
corsets and dresses thin! for body lines must 




358 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


show through, else there’s no lure! Fleshy 
floppy parts held insecurely, threatening as 
they spring about, to flee all bandage, and as 
you look at them from the rear, the distance 
of a hundred yards can’t hide from you the 
line that cleaves them posteriorly, giving them, 
the beasts, what science calls bilateral sym¬ 
metry!” 

“That’s Latin!” hiccoughed Edward Dillon. 

“Of all this generation, it’s the female half 
I hate most of all,” cried Pentland, “for in 
their very sex they insult the memory of my 
holy pair. Two noble women swayed me in 
turn, but faith and reverence can never again 
come to me from such a source, for the women 
of to-day are nothing but empty stupid clots 
of filthy flesh, oh how I hate them!” 

“Oh yes you do!” jeered Dillon, “but just 
the same you got your eye on that tall blond! 
You know damned well she’s signalling you.” 

“Vile creature!” snarled Pentland, “doubly 
vile! to make her overtures when I despise her. 
I look at her, it’s true, but only in revulsion. 
Great God, it is revulsion, I swear it is, and 
yet it has a hint of something more hideous, 
a crawling insinuation of the flesh, the net of 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


359 


lust with which this viper is enfolding me! But 
I’ll not yield to it! I hate her, and before she 
robs me of my self-respect, I’ll destroy her. 
I’ll kill the bitch, and right this minute, 
too!” 

With this he seized a bottle and sprang to 
his feet and darted toward the dance floor, the 
Frolickers streaming after him, some in dis¬ 
may and some in laughter. Fast at his heels 
they came, and caught up with him, and then 
there was a crash: the doors of the Restaurant 
de Super Luxe swung wide, and down the 
stairs there poured, and into the dining room 
there streamed, a mob of well-dressed smiling 
happy prosperous men, storming the place 
like a victorious army, thronging the aisles 
and crowding to the tables, surrounding the 
Frolickers,—they were a horde through which 
there was no passing, and all of them were 
shouting, 

“Tissue paper! Tissue paper! We are 
the manufacturers of it!” 

“The manufacturers and jobbers, retailers, 
advertisers, also the salesmen of it!” 

“Hooray for us, for this is our convention 
week!” 




360 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


Pentland collapsed in Edward Dillon’s 
arms, gurgling weakly, 

“Hee hee hee! Hee hee hee hee! Hee hee 
hee hee hee!” 


VI 

“Fellow conventioners!” their chairman 
roared above the tumult. “Find seats, any¬ 
where at all, we’re only staying for a drink! 
It’s late, and to-morrow is the big day, all 
speech and demonstration!” 

What power leaders do possess! One word 
from them and all the common run of men 
press to obey, as a thousand sheep wheel round 
at the shepherd’s shout: the chairman gave 
command, the mob obeyed. They swarmed 
in all directions, a wave that pushed the 
Frolickers back and back, until Pentland and 
his friends were once more at their table in 
the corner, with a ring of extra guests: con¬ 
ventioners with faces thin and faces fat, and 
some with hair and some without, men from 
every corner of America, diverse ones bound 
to a common Cause, made one by the unity 
of their product, oh this is our convention 
week! 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


361 


“Great year we’ve had, fine, splendid, 
lovely!” 

“The biggest yet, we’ve got to celebrate.” 

“Parade to-morrow, that’s what we’ll do. 
Hooray!” 

“Hooray!” cried Pentland. “We are great, 
let us be greater!” 

The cry went round the table, and out 
across the restaurant, and to its farthest 
corner, 

“Hooray! We are great, let us be greater!” 

Everyone laughed, but Pentland laughed 
most of all, he thrown into a fit of such 
uproarious merriment that those at a distance 
poked each other in the ribs, and wagged their 
heads, and said, 

“Jolly chap over there at the big round 
table. Looks like he might be from Chicago. 
Great market for our product in Chicago 
some day.” 

Pentland laughed and every one laughed 
with him, until a voice rang out, 

“Come on, all you conventioners! We’ve 
made a day of it,—let’s get to bed. This is 
our hundredth anniversary, but we need some 
sleep. One drink more, but this is the last 




362 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


one. Let’s drink to 1919, the present year, 
but more than that, let’s drink in memory of 
a century ago, the great old year when we 
began our great career. Here’s to old 1819, 
the year in which we set our foot upon the 
road toward finer bigger greater things!” 

“Hooray!” cried Pentland, holding up his 
glass. “Here’s to old 1819, the year in 
which—” 

With a gasp he broke off. His face turned 
sick, his glass slipped from his hand, he sank 
into a chair as if crushed there by a mighty 
blow,—and now because the hour was late, 
the conventioners had gone, the diners and 
the dancers, too, were going home: the 
Frolickers were left behind to be as happy 
as they liked. Said Pentie with a damned 
queer voice, 

“What month is this?” 

Dillon laughed and slapped him on the 
back, 

“April! the month when booze is in season.” 

“The date?” 

“The date? Oh hell, I don’t know. The 
fifteenth, I guess.” 

Then all the Frolickers gaped, for Arthur 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


363 


Pentland had sprung to his feet, crying, as he 
clung to the table for support, 

“I say! my dear, dear friends, we’ve got 
to celebrate! Order up more booze, prepare 
to drink! We’ve got to celebrate, for such 
is done on anniversaries, and this is mine,— 
I had forgotten it. One hundred years ago, 
that chairman said, do you remember? Ha ha 
ha ha ha ha!” 

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha!” went the Frolickers. 

“In the city of Philadelphia!” cried Pent- 
land, “ho ho ho ho ho ho!” 

“Ho ho ho ho ho ho!” 

“A far and distant city, where there lived a 
man by the name of Richard Bacon! Haw haw 
haw haw haw haw!” 

“Haw haw haw haw haw haw!” 

“Who started a business that we must cele¬ 
brate, oh we are gathered in convention! 
Hee hee hee hee hee hee!” 

“Hee hee hee hee hee hee!” 

VII 

They had to celebrate, a thing impossible 
without more liquor,—and so it came: bottles 
in procession, tall ones with eager wine inside, 




364 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


dark squat containers yielding stuff more 
sinister, flasks bearing outlandish names, plain 
bottles bulging full of whiskey, all these 
upon the great round table, there where the 
Frolickers sat. 

They had the place all to themselves, 
almost. The wide expansive restaurant was 
deserted save for the Frolickers, and one other. 
Hooray! cried Pentland, and seized his glass 
to toast himself, when with his bleary not- 
seeing-very-clearly eyes he looked across the 
dining hall: in a corner, back turned to the 
merrymakers, sat a sqlitary figure, motionless. 
Pentland blinked to clear his sight, and 
grasping Dillon by the arm he whispered 
hoarsely, 

“There he is again. Who is that man, I 
say, that stranger there?” 

“Huh? Oh, him? He’s just a feller, I 
suppose. Maybe one of them convention guys 
left behind. What the hell do we care, any¬ 
how? It’s your birthday, ain’t it? We gotta 
drink!” 

Pentland seized his glass again, and raised 
it high, 

“Yes, we’ve got to drink, so down with it!” 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


365 


Dillon, 

“Come on, you Frolickers, drink hearty. 

This is Pentie’s birthday. He’s.say, 

Pentie, how old did ye say ye wus?” 

Pentland, with a strange face, and stranger 
voice, 

“I’ll tell you, if you really want to know.” 

“Of course we want to know! What the 
hell! We gotta know so we can drink ye a 
long life, ain’t we? I ain’t no wop, I know 
how to do things. I’m in the Social Register! 
How old are ye?” 

Pentland sent his pale gray eyes around the 
circle of boozy staring faces, and calmly said, 

“Fellow Frolickers, I am one hundred and 
thirty-eight years old.” 

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha!” 

“Ho ho ho ho ho ho!” 

“Haw haw haw haw!” 

“Hee hee hee hee hee!” 

What a Pentie! He sure do like his little 
joke! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! 

“Here’s to m’ friend, Art Pentland,” Dil¬ 
lon cried. “He’s thirty-eight to-day!” 

“I said one hundred and thirty-eight!” 

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha!” 




366 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“Ho ho ho ho ho ho!” 

“Haw haw haw haw!” 

“Hee hee hee hee hee!” 

What a Pentie! If he don’t watch out, 
he’ll he the death of all us fellers, him an’ 
his little jokes! ’Ray fer Pentie, pickled 
a’ready! 

“Hun’erd an’ thirty-eight, eh?” chuckled 
Dillon, slapping at the shoulder of his friend. 
“Say, how does it feel to be so goddam old— 
hie—tell us! Fellers—ugh—there’s an idea, 
how hell would it feel to be so damn’ old? 
Come on, Pentie Wentie, you can sling the 
words, and besides, by hell, birthday’s a time 
fer makin’ speeches!” 

“Speech! Speech! Speech! ” 

“Hooray fer Pentie Wentie!” 

“He’s goin’ tell us how it feels like to be 
hun’erd an’ forty-seven!” 

Applause. 

“And so you want to know just how it feels 
to be as old as I am?” said Pentland. “Fill 
up my glass, and I will tell you.” 

The glass filled up with liquor, the orator 
tossed it off, then again he seized Dillon by 
the arm, 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


367 


“Look! The stranger has turned around 
to face us, as if to listen to what I have to say! 
Who is that man?” 

“Oh hell!” belched Dillon, “he’s somebody, 
I suppose. Go on, let’s hear yer yarn.” 

“Yes, yes,” the others cried, “go on, go on. 
Forward with yer song an’ dance. How do the 
world look to you, you goddam six hun’erd 
ole cuss? You Pentie you, what’s your idea 
of it?” 

And Pentland, with his staring eyes upon 
the stranger far across the restaurant, mur¬ 
mured low and huskily, 

“It’s nonsense.” 

“Ha ha!” the Frolickers shouted out, “ha 
ha! ha ha! Nonsense sure as Hell, but say! 
we’re only foolin’, just to keep ourself awake. 
Come on an’ make a speech, just like the 
idea’s sense, not nonsense! It’s all a joke. 
We’re just pretending!” 

VIII 

“We’re just pretending!” Pentland cried. 
“Suppose, then, that we pretend there is a 
man who cannot die! Pretend he finds the 
world unreal! incredible! a ghastly phan- 




368 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


tasmagoria beyond the bounds of sense and 
reason, belief or understanding!” 

“Hooray!” 

“All creatures are meant for their own time 
and generation, and when they live beyond it, 
they find themselves in the very antipode of 
what is real. He who is deathless—” 

“He sure know how to—” 

“—at length become an intruder in a new 
strange world, for manners, customs, deeds 
and purposes, all change and grow, develop, 
evolving to such a state that the relic from the 
ancient past can never feel at one with them.” 

“Yer sample’s fine, bring on yer speech!” 

“Seeking things familiar to him, things no 
longer existing, he moves as a single actor 
upon a lurid stage in nightmare pantomime, 
somnambulist in dream within a dream, know¬ 
ing no season and no date, for all these signs 
become as adventitious tags to Time, the all¬ 
engulfing horror! ” 

“Hey!” protested Tommy Smith, “not so 
highbrow there!” 

“Through years and decades I stride on and 
on, until the earth is remote, uncanny, a dazed 
immensity without color, without warmth—” 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


369 


Nodding Frolickers, sleepy. 

66 —I am as one enclosed in glass, and can¬ 
not feel what common men can feel! I’m in 
the world, yet not of it!” 

66 What the hell’s he ravin’ about?” growled 
Frankie Jones. 

“Hold yer gab,” said Dillon. “That’s real 
talk, an’ you better listen while ye got the 
chanst, or if you don’t wanta, go back to sleep. 
Go on there, Pentie, give ’em Hell. You may 
put these other guys to sleep, but me! say, I 
like to hear ye rave. Go on! This’s yer birth¬ 
day! You got the floor!” 

The orator, 

“I’ve got the floor! Then listen to the tale 
of one who feels with clear exquisite pain all 
sensations of the multifarious present, linking 
this with the broad pelagic past, and sketching 
a road into the dizzy future, these three then 
building to a whole that’s madness. Past, 
present, and the future—” 

“Aw, nuts!” grunted Johnnie Hencher, and 
settled to a nap. 

66 —behold Time’s panorama, one merci¬ 
fully clipped at either end for you, you with 
your buffers which keep the brain from fray 





370 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


and fret against the law of change. For you 
there is a smudging blurring and diverting of 
the senses, but I lack all this, and have instead 
a weight of time that is crushing me to agony! 
I squirm, I writhe, I moan, I try to sleep,—it 
is the same: the pain goes on! there is no 
pause! until I sink exhausted, and all the 
warmth and humanness seeps out of my tor¬ 
tured heart, and all emotion dies!” 

He paused abruptly, for the stranger across 
the restaurant was smiling just a little, where¬ 
upon Pentland raised his voice angrily, 

“I say that my emotions have been killed! 
Good and evil, right and wrong, such ideas 
have fled, and all that is left to me is reason, 
reason robbed of the veils and props of feel¬ 
ing, reason that goads me mad, for when 
illusion is snatched from the picture of the 
world, the frame holds only drab sourness, 
exhibiting but a single facet!” 

“And what is zat?” cried Dillon, rousing 
up to give his friend a hazy smile. 

“Vanity!” cried Pentland, striking the table 
such a blow he almost woke up Eddie Jones. 
“Unending and persistent vanity! Untouched 
by time, I see time passing, I see it as a wave 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


371 


that carries all but me to growth and fume and 
quick decay. I see the life of man compressed 
to ten short seconds, for he is but a bubble! a 
phantom looming out of chaos, burning 
quickly to an ash, and going back to chaos, 
fading to the eternity of nothingness.” 

“Amo amds arnat /” cried Dillon, punching 
Tommy Smith to send his snore away. “I 
unnerstan’ yer Latin! Go to it!” 

He did go to it, raving on unchecked, but 
never forgetting his rhetoric, never, 

“0 time, the mirror in which all things 
reflect themselves as odious! ephemeral dross! 
0 time the tide, incessant lap and surge in¬ 
evitable, the wasting and corroding flow that 
beats all human aspirations down to sand! 
Time the jester, monstrous time, giving man 
only the present moment, which lately was 
not, and soon will be no more! 0 thou con¬ 
juror throwing on the screen of life an endless 
kaleidoscope having variety only to dolts blind 
to its recurrent themes, a false diversity teach¬ 
ing the folly of all effort and all struggle! 0 
God, what is the use of talk, of thought, the 
use of prayer or action, the use of anything!” 

“Wus matter, Pentie?” muttered Dillon, 




372 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


who sat and blinked against the drowsiness 
creeping over him. “Don’ git blue, ain’t we 
the Frolickers?” 

“Fool!” cried Pentland. “I’ve tried to 
drown my grief, but it can’t be done! I’ll 
stop pretending, and be myself again! 
America, the land of contrasts! A Pentland 
and a Dillon simulating friendship! I hate 
you! you and the swine they call the great 
American people!” 

“Hey! watch out, ’are. Gotta be patriotic. 
Don’ go ’suitin’ ’Murican people.” 

“To hell with the American people! A 
hundred million lice, so I pronounce them! 
Chosen people! assembled from the dregs of 
every cesspool on the earth, brought here to 
spawn and sweat, idiots prattling of their 
destiny,—a confidence assumed to hide the 
inner nothingness! Chaos breeds life, yet in 
America it’s bred no plan for life, and since 
man needs a plan, I say that this is no pro¬ 
cession toward a goal, but only a dust cloud 
raised by tempest, in which there’s neither 
vision nor a soul, but only bombast,— behold 
the great, let-us-be-greater American people. 
Hooray!” 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


373 


66 ’Ray!” cried Dillon, fumbling at a bottle. 
“Big stuff!” 

“Big stuff!” Pentland echoed viciously, “ah 
yes! big stuff, that’s what it is, stuff! and 
nothing more. Padding, bulk, weight! ex¬ 
ternals for the eye and finger, nothing more. 
Harping on the size of things, their number 
and dimension, mad for visibility and meas¬ 
urement, marvelling at the big, astounded by 
the bigger, hitching their wagons to the big¬ 
gest, there’s America! 0 big big land with 
biggest cities, biggest buildings, with biggest 
sales and biggest trains and biggest turnips, 
you are a conqueror, America! mistress of all 
that can be grasped with fist,—but where’s 
your soul?” 

“ ’Ray fer ’Merica! No flies on her!” 

“0 America! you were planted long ago, 
but how can the shoots come up when you 
are ploughed incessantly? Turmoil is the 
foe of germination! the seeds of culture need 
quiet, long restful spells of calm for brooding 
spirit, the peace of deep reflection,—you lack 
all this! For more than a century you’ve had 
your way, only to become a stamping ground 
for blockheads, fools, and vulgar pigs, bour- 




374 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


geoisie indifferent to the arts, prating of 
money and golf and motor cars, but never of 
inner spirit. It’s business and dividends, how 
much our daughter’s wedding cost, and what 
our income was and is and ever shall be, and 
don’t forget the necessary smoke! 

“Smoke! the symbol of the factories which 
are a refuge when we stand in need! We 
ain’t got culture, hey? Well, then, we’ll get 
it. We’ll make it hum, you watch us! We’ll 
print a million copies of the Angelus, a mil¬ 
lion more of Rembrandt done by himself (or 
is it Titian?), and we’ll send ’em out free, one 
in every package of breakfast food. They’ll 
reach the plumber, the baker, the powder- 
puff maker, and then they’ll be more refined. 
With our radio we’ll broadcast A'ida, greatest 
of the operas, and thus make South Dakota 
musical. Oh we with great machine, with 
printing press and mouthy talk, we’ll turn out 
culture by the ton, as we do everything! Why 
not? Why not? 

“0 Christ!” cried Pentland then, “how can 
it be that all this bustle! activity! brisk 
energy! is toward the dark, not light! How 
can men live without a soul, as I have lived 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


375 


so long! How can it be that life does not 
result in growth, in birth! The swelling form 
of great America some take for pregnancy, 
but though her heart kicked long ago, the 
child of spirit still loiters in the womb. I 
tried to make myself believe this greater girth 
is from a tumor, not a child, but why? Why 
all this growing, puffing, straining and ex¬ 
panding, this long-drawn travail, if there’s no 
birth to come? What does it mean? What 
is the meaning of our life here in America?” 

IX 

Thus spoke Arthur Pentland, and paused 
and looked about expectantly. He roved his 
eyes around the table where the Frolickers 
were drowsing in their chairs, all of them 
asleep but Edward Dillon, who looked up 
heavily and muttered, 

66 ’Ray! Goo’ speech. Set down. 

have a drink.” 

“So that’s your answer? Time to stop! 
Bad form! for in America conversation must 
be frothy. Talk all you like of auto tires and 
baseball scores and childish novels, but on the 





376 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


riddle of our secret life hold silent, else you re 
a fool!” 

Johnnie Hencher pulled himself awake, 

“Set down fer Christ sake! What are you, 
a book agent, or somethin’?” 

“Yes, and you’re Americans!” sneered 
Pentland. “You monkeys! when it comes to 
serious talk you’re on a par with the laughing 
jackass.” 

“Go t’ Hell!” 

“Is life a blind and senseless pageant? a 
play without a meaning? a panorama con¬ 
ceived in nonsense and executed in the same? 
So much effort cannot be pointless, but what’s 
the answer? What is the meaning of our 
life?” 

Hencher had gone back to sleep and Dillon 
was nodding as Arthur Pentland turned to 
glower upon them. He turned his gaze upon 
the stranger sitting across the restaurant; the 
stranger watched him, listening to his further 
words, 

“I sought an answer to this question, from 
metaphysics, because I’d heard so much of it, 
and how it clears up mystery. I went to those 
professing it, went as a pilgrim to a shrine, 





THE BLIND ALLEY 


377 


and they, all buttressed round by dusty tomes 
ransacked for glib quotation, they gave me 
words and words and words, making sound but 
little sense,—they left me weak and faint, as 
if I’d dined on mattress stuffing. Whiskered 
old philosophers! their heads were bulging 
with their systems and their theories, but had 
no clutch on man’s existence: the riddle was 
a page they could not read, but only slobber 
over!” 

“Wake me up when ye git through!” 
grumbled Dillon, and slept. 

Pentland fixed his gleaming eyes upon the 
stranger across the restaurant and ranted on, 

“The pendulum swings and so did I, back 
through barren wide stretches, from abstruse 
thought to those who preached of practicality, 
and practiced what they preached. Cocksure 
ones, so satisfied with what they called their 
way of looking at the world,—their talk was 
taller than their stature. Blind to the invisible 
as metaphysics to the visible, life is only an 
engine to them. With finger and wrench and 
screwdriver they take the thing apart, and 
catalog its elements, and put it back together 
again, to show just how it works, and how 




378 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


there is no spirit essence in it. There ain’t, 
I say, else I’d have grabbed it with my pincers! 

“These two extremes I tested,” cried Pent- 
land, swelling with eloquence, “and found no 
clue to what I sought, then as I lingered sad 
and dull along the roadside of this mortal life, 
I heard of others, seers! prophets! reformers 
of shining face and great great promise, but as 
I drew near to them they rose before me as 
cross-grained arrogance, bundles of lopsided 
crotchets, squint-eyed bantlings whining of 
their magic theories, their schemes ignoring 
disagreeing facts and forces, their remedies 
so water-tight, made up of seven reasons why 
this is so, and three principles for a future 
conduct, all labelled, cut and dried, rounded 
into pills for all the ills of life, simple treat¬ 
ment for complex diseases, forgetting this: 
to classify is to distort,—but making up for 
that by greater brag. Noise to make the 
hungry one believe the straw is wheat, rant¬ 
ing to sell their sieve for soup tureen, celebrat¬ 
ing just-discovered truth, old familiar foolish¬ 
ness called by a different name, and all to 
bring about the millennium—oh Heaven save 
us from reformers! 





THE BLIND ALLEY 


379 


“Three times I failed and tried a fourth!” 
cried Pentland, glaring at the silent listening 
stranger. “Fourth time and last, and this the 
bitterest of all my disappointments. Pacing, 
dully striding, going on my endless way, lo! 
I heard voices, sweet far-away victorious 
voices, singing of those who really understood, 
those few superior, who with their hands 
joined round in mutual admiration, made up 
a vast placenta, from which blind groping 
embryos like me might get the nourishment of 
vital juices. Such food, thought I, would 
course all through my limbs and bring me 
strength, and in my brain and in my heart and 
in my soul, ’twould build up clear sweet power, 
a cure for my great ache and great confusion. 
Weak though I was, hope gave me strength. 
I turned and walked as if on flowers. 

“I sought and found, coming at length unto 
the Mighty City, where ’mid the buildings 
towering high, I found the wondrous beings 
whose mellow and triumphant voices had 
reached me from afar. I found them: dealers 
in free verse and criticism, combination sex 
perverts and music makers, authors, painters, 
lecturers and nameless freaks, the great Ameri- 





380 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


can intelligentsia , above this little globe so 
high uprisen that problems here are simple 
things. Simple! oh so simple, for though the 
wit and wisdom of the ancient world pon¬ 
dered these things in vain, we settle ’em while 
we sip our tea, revealing, in our dapper expla¬ 
nation, logic of this sort: to sneer at food we 
eat in restaurant will prove that we eat well 
at home. 

“What thought I as I stood in company 
with these great ones, before whose birth the 
world was but a sorry thing, and beyond whose 
taking off there is no hope for man? I thought 
them smart-alecks and poseurs, half imitation 
half triviality, jackals full of wind not meat, 
lingering at the very gates of Truth and yap¬ 
ping, announcing, as I made effort to pass in, 
that this gate led from the Truth, not to it, 
and furthermore that where they stood was 
center of the magic circle, not without it. I, 
sensing that they stood without, not in, made 
to go by, at which they howled and rent me, 
and tore my flesh, and when I fled they laughed 
at me, saying I was defeated.” 

The stranger smiled. 

“And they were right,” cried Pentland. “I 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


381 


was defeated! I fled from them and to con¬ 
fusion greater than before, hemmed in by 
mirage! seeing substance melt to shadow! 
pacing broad and promising avenues, which 
as I went upon them, twisted and grew narrow, 
ending in blind alleys, cul-de-sacs! I sought 
and did not find, and yet I must, for in this 
reeling hour I know my destiny to lie with 
America! Somehow! in some profound and 
deep mysterious way, we’re joined as stalk and 
tendril, we two to play a part in universal 
consummation, wayfaring toward a glorious 
end, for such an end, and only such, can 
justify, explain, transfigure the suffering I 
have tasted. And yet I’m mad, for these are 
words and only words! I am a fragment that 
is both a riddle in itself, and part and parcel 
of a greater puzzle, to all of which there is no 
answer.” 

He paused to bend his shuddering gaze 
upon the stranger sitting there across the 
restaurant, and then as if what he saw in him 
provoked suspicion and denial, Pentland 
cried, 

“I swear there is no answer, and least of all 
in me! I am a shell, a husk, sick in my soul, 




382 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


a skin packed tight with horror, ennui and 
despair, mad to vomit, yet cannot.” 

He buried his face in his trembling hands, 
—and looked up: the stranger had risen to 
his feet. 

“You fiend!” cried Pentland, starting back, 
“the very sight of you is horrible! Why is it 
that your gaze can strip me bare, tear off the 
deep disguise I cling to, draw through my 
lips and into speech what I must say! Well, 
hear it, since you must, that in the flight from 
Heaven down to Earth I see the lives of men 
converging to a plan of how we are to build 
the fabric brotherhood, a fabric woven on the 
warp of earth by spirit’s shuttle darting woof, 
fast-flying shuttle weaving many diverse and 
single threads into a wide triumphant unity, 
with pattern clear when we stand proper dis¬ 
tance! And I at proper distance gaze and 
see and know there’s order where from a nearer 
view I saw but nonsense. Behold in this the 
paradox: democracy first breaking down the 
shell of social class to let the earth breed up 
free-pulsing individuals, then working subtly 
craftily toward a newer unity, in which all men 
are brothers of the spirit, an end so wrenching 




THE BLIND ALLEY 


383 


to my former self that I must swear I’ll not 
take part in it!” 

The stranger took a step forward, and Pent- 
land seized the auto salesman by the arm, 

“Wake up! Wake up and help me—he's 
after me!” 

Dillon wobbled in his chair, opened an eye, 
and muttered as he fell asleep again, 

“ ’Smatter, Pentie? Got the snakes?” 

The stranger took a step forward, and Pent- 
land cried out, 

“Stand back! I do not want you! I— 
Great God, what is happening? I feel oppres¬ 
sion at my brain, my heart, my very being, a 
frightening hint at coming ease, as one who 
pregnant through a long gestation, now feels 
delivery is near. One hundred years ago to¬ 
night the seed was planted, growing within 
me from that time, though I deny it! Deny 
it! wishing none of that new spirit pressing 
toward my vent, for I am weak and sick, with¬ 
out the strength to do what I must do.” 

Slowly the stranger advanced, nearer, 
nearer, till Pentland with a scream of agony 
sprang backward, darting toward the door and 
running out into the night, leaving behind, oh 




384 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


far behind! the Restaurant de Super Luxe , the 
stranger, too, the blond man with broad shoul¬ 
ders and very ruddy,—and Arthur Pentland 
as he ran was weeping. 





An Ending Is Sometimes 

A Beginning 



I 


It was a day knee-deep in June—thus all 
love stories should begin—and all the broad 
and fertile valley lay humming underneath 
the press of humankind: great bustling cities, 
busy little towns, smoking mills and noisy 
factories, new suburbs yielding the sound of 
axe and saw and hammer, expansive farms 
with beast and plant and fragrant loamy soil 
harnessed to the needs of man. All this, and 
people everywhere, people moving talking 
buying selling, a multitude of tingling folks, 
who working with their hands and brains, 
pulsed to the rhythms of a mighty music: each 
was a bow to play upon the fiddle of the earth, 
each made his own peculiar melody, ten thou¬ 
sand single tunes then building to the grander 
sound of harmony, weaving to a wide trium¬ 
phant symphony,—a road led out from all 
of this. 

A road led out and dragged away, pointing 
away from the singing valley and to an empty 
waste, a road once fretted by the feet of many 
men, but now outgrown, abandoned; its every 
387 


388 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


farther turning was quieter and more obscure, 
until no longer highway, it was nothing but 
a road, a thing of dirt and ruts, with sod 
between the wheel marks, and weeds to men¬ 
ace it on either hand, a grassy lane between 
two rows of broken fence, and then there was 
no fence at all: the lane had narrowed to a 
trail. 

Pushing, winding steadily, the way led past 
a ranch and a lonely house, crept in among the 
gentle earthy undulations, and in among the 
foothills softly swelling, rising, then, by slow 
degrees to a low plateau. It paused as if to rest, 
and afterward went on, climbing high above 
man’s valley, up toward a spot where dazzling 
peaks shone as the very battlements of 
Heaven, giving a hint of Paradise free from 
mundane dross, high up, I say, above the 
hazy smelly world of men, far up and up to 
tower proud! superior! above the land of 
human habitation,—there on the summit of 
the mountain Arthur Pentland stood. 

II 

Upon the summit of the lofty mountain 
Pentland stood, upon a high uplifting peak 




AN ENDING 


389 


there by the western sea, above the world of 
men, alone on Heaven’s height. Above his 
head the firmament was one vast dome of blue, 
and all about him lay a gentle mist, pierced 
here and there by sunlight’s rays until it gave 
out gleams of golden hue, pink orange blue 
and greenish tints beyond all counting. Glory 
on a mountain top! a fresh clean world, a 
universe in which there was no ugliness, no 
noise, no human touch to tarnish beauty. 

It was a place of deep pure calm, of brood¬ 
ing peace, of such profound serenity that Pent- 
land’s face relaxed into a smile. Down he 
sank upon a rock, leaned back and rested, 
gazing all about as one who’s been away and 
now comes home. He looked about and as he 
gazed, somehow the scene was softly chang¬ 
ing: the rays of sunlight one by one were draw¬ 
ing back, and as they went away the glorious 
tinting faded. The bright and pretty hues 
fled from the mist, and left it gray, dull. Pent- 
land gazed, and gazing shivered just a little. 
He gulped and wet his lips and raised his 
trembling and uncertain voice, 

“0 Lord above, majestic and divine, I’ve 
fled humanity, and return to Thee. Chastened 




390 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


and made humble, I have renounced the earth 
to turn again to Heaven. Accept me, Lord! 
Support me, for I am weak!” 

He paused to gaze about, and as he looked 
he saw the mist was just a little thicker, cooler, 
too, more moist, a blanket fit to shroud dead 
barren things. The blue of Heaven had gone 
away, and when the wanderer lifted up his 
face in supplication, lo! he saw but fog. His 
pale gray eyes strained at the pale gray mass, 
his face shook with the surge of quick despair, 
he gave a cry and knelt and clasped his hands 
beseechingly, 

“Almighty God, look down on me in pity. 
I am alone and weak, and troubled in my 
spirit, Lord. I swear that I have cast off the 

wretched world of men, and I.Thou 

givest me no sign, but I know well Thou dost 
exist,—if not, why I invent Thee! Yea! in 
my utter grief and misery, Lord, I now invent 
Thee! upon this very spot! for man is impo¬ 
tent without a staff, and needs, besides him¬ 
self, a mightier one to succor him. Without 
this succor life’s a coil, a maze, delusion and a 
snare, so I invent Thee! Be! therefore, and 
catch me up and suckle me!” 





AN ENDING 


391 


Thus crying praying and beseeching, he 
gazed on high and saw the clouds were mo¬ 
mently more thick, nearer, colder. Above the 
head of Arthur Pentland vapor, mist, dank 
fog impenetrable, to right of him the same, 
to left and back and out before him likewise; 
silently the clouds were pressing round and 
round, nearer, closer round and round, until 
at last his hunted eyes perceived that he him¬ 
self was center of the universe, its single bit 
of life, trembling on a barren rock, sur¬ 
rounded, pressed about by fog,—his little 
world was shrinking fast, converging to him¬ 
self, at which a panic leaped into his face. 

“0 God!” he cried in direful agony, “0 
God, why dost Thou torture me? I take my 
oath I’m at my tether’s end, why then this 
chill, this drab immensity, this friendless ster¬ 
ile chaos? Cleave Thou this silent and unliv¬ 
ing mist, and give me comfort! Yea! Lord, 
do more than this! Send with Thy mighty 
arm a thunderbolt to strike me dead, for life 
on earth is but a hideous dream. A place of 
grief and misery, so I pronounce the world of 
men,—I’ve had enough of it. I’ve suffered 
long, Almighty One, take me, Lord, and give 




392 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


me peace. Have pity on me, wretched sinner 
that I am. Take me, in the name of Christ, 
take me!” 

Thus spoke Arthur Pentland on the moun¬ 
tain top, crying out in wild abandoned frenzy, 
and pausing then to gaze on high in awe and 
expectation. He looked, he saw but fog, mist 
closer thicker colder. To the right he gazed, 
and saw the same, to the left hand, too, and all 
about, he saw but fog, fog! fog! fog thicker and 
more wet, drab lifeless fog so cold, and oh! so 
silent. He cupped his ear to listen, and heard 
no sound: he was alone, alone upon the moun¬ 
tain top, away, oh! far away from all the hated 
world of humankind, and still he had no peace. 
Doubt came writhing to his eyes, doubt and 
vague dull apprehension, misgiving stronger 
with each passing moment—a sudden terror 
seized him—with a cry he sprang to his trem¬ 
bling feet. 

Lingering there a moment he gazed aloft 
once more, and then with chattering teeth and 
senseless and unmeaning words he set off 
through the fog, stumbling in the misty stuff, 
a lost bewildered frightened creature, moving 
with uncertainty, fumbling through the silent, 




AN ENDING 


393 


chill and thickish fog, falling on sharp stones 
and tripping over roots, gasping, muttering 
brokenly, moaning in distress and great con¬ 
fusion, until he saw a shape that loomed up 
solid in the gray and yeasty sea of nothing¬ 
ness. He gave a little cry and stumbled nearer, 
nearer and still nearer tottering, coming, at 
length, so close he saw it was an automobile, 
and there beside it tinkering, he saw a man. 

“Help!” cried Pentland. “I’m lost!” 

The man turned around. 

“I want to go back to the valley,” Pentland 
cried, stumbling closer. “Will you take me?” 
“Yes.” 


Ill 

They set off down the road, slowly, noise¬ 
lessly, weaving through the fog under the 
hands of the skilful driver,—he had turned on 
the lights, two great eyes to help him spy the 
way. 

“How cold it is up here,” muttered Pent¬ 
land, shivering, squirming, staring wide-eyed 
at the vapor stretching ahead of them. 

Silence. 




394 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


“It’s cold,” repeated Pentland in uneasi¬ 
ness, “cold.so cold. It looked warm 

and inviting when I started, but it turned cold 
.unfriendly. This mountain climb¬ 
ing is deceiving. The summits look glorious 
from below, but they don’t fulfill their prom¬ 
ise when you reach them. The heights are 
barren, cold, swept by biting winds,—the 
air’s too rare for men to live by. I find it a 

delusion and a snare. I’m disappointed. 

it’s so cold.It’s warmer in the val¬ 
ley down below.where men live. 

isn’t it?” 

“Yes,” said the driver, peering ahead to 
make out the road they were travelling, the 
dark and tenebrous road winding from the 
mountain top down toward the valley teeming 
rich with human life. 

“I’m cold,” persisted Pentland. “I’m 
chilled through. I’m sick.” 

“You can get a doctor when we reach the 
valley.” 

But Pentland groaned, 

“There is no doctor for the sickness I have.” 

“What sickness have you?” 

“Sickness of the body, heart, and soul, a 








AN ENDING 


395 


chronic complicated malady beyond the skill 
of doctors.” 

“There are all sorts of doctors nowadays, 
specialists.” 

“I’ve tried them all,” growled Pentland. 
“They have no power to ease me. Stranger, 
you do not know who I am, else you’d not 
suggest a doctor so blandly. I am a man of 
a strange and curious destiny, whose story is 
a long and bitter one. If you like, I’ll tell it to 
beguile the time.” 

“Very well.” 

Pause. 

“My name is Arthur Pentland. I was born 
of aristocratic parents—” 

“Eh?” 

“My name is Arthur Pentland. I was born 
in Philadelphia, being prematurely delivered 
into the world.” 


IV 

So Arthur Pentland began to talk, telling, 
as they drifted down the mountain road, of all 
his trials and troubles, of how at last he saw 
himself as a clear outstanding fragment in 
Life’s pattern, and how self-pity, hate and sor- 





396 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


row held him back and made him rage and 
run away. He told of how he fled the world 
of men and went upon the mountain. As a 
child he’d looked for comfort in his mother’s 
bed, and now as a greater infant he thought to 
shun his destiny by shrivelling back into the 
womb of withered old religion, the narrow 
bloodless shell of Heaven. 

He paused a while, the car sped on, and 
Pentland went on talking. With a trembling 
voice he said that this had been his frantic 
hope, but as he stood there on the summit, 
he felt himself drawn not to Heaven but to 
Earth, or rather, say, to heaven upon the 
earth, for now they joined and somehow 
seemed they never had been separated. A 
flood of clear perception rose in him, a flame, 
a light, a spring of water giving hope and 
courage, a force that drew aside the veil and 
showed the world in all its glory. What had 
once seemed chaos appeared to him as growth, 
the very diversity and turbulence of which 
took place as facets to a single living jewel, 
and he, who’d clamored for an answer to the 
meaning of it all, said this: there is no mean¬ 
ing to our life here in America save that it 




AN ENDING 


397 


must have meaning, there is no answer more 
than perception of the fact that an answer is 
what we’ve got to have. All this love showed 
him in a flash. 

The car rode on, the driver held his peace, 
but Pentland not: love was a word that threw 
him into an ecstasy. He mouthed it tenderly, 
declaring it the secret he’d uncovered in his 
heart. Not love as he had once conceived it, 
not sentiment, not affection for the flesh, not 
love for individuals as such, none of this! but 
what’s more glorious far, a universal force 
that makes the world go round, a yearning 
pulsing and unconscious aspiration, incessant 
flowing toward that fulfillment which will 
bring ease. 

Love of this sort, so Pentland said, binds up 
with ideality, and takes from us the label of 
materialism, and shows us forth as pragmatists 
intent upon results, for since we cannot know 
the ultimate reality of things, it’s lawful that 
we conjure up as real what we can grasp with 
our imagination, thus satisfying the needs of 
heart and brain. But though we are intent on 
what is definite, said Pentland joyously, we’re 
pushing over and beyond the practical, toward 




398 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


that ideal of spirit which is the hidden goal 
no man can reach, and yet must strive for. 

“Such is my story,” he concluded. “I’ve 
shed my doubts and found my peace. Unhap¬ 
piness is fleeing me, as all about this car the 
fog is fleeing, for now I see my tribulations 
were due to my own greatness, to the prod and 
prick of that infinity within me which all my 
pettiness could not destroy or smother down. 
But talking has fatigued me; I’m going to take 
a nap.” 

He closed his eyes and leaned back in the 
seat, when all at once the stranger at the wheel 
switched off the headlights of the car and 
cried, 

“The fog is gone, the night is gone! Bar¬ 
ren heights are left behind, and you have come 
back to where men dwell! So waken, Arthur 
Pentland, for there’s no sleeping for you now! 
This is the dawn, not dusk! The curtain of 
your life is going up, not down, and so awake!” 

V 

“Rouse up!” the blond man cried at Arthur 
Pentland’s side, “rouse up, do not sink down! 
Shaken from the grip of one somnambulism, 




AN ENDING 


399 


will you fall into another and call it wakeful¬ 
ness? You think to rest, but inert dream and 
lassitude have been your role too long. It’s 
rest no more!” 

“But—” 

“Your talking has fatigued you, sir! but 
I wonder just how far your words will carry. 
They tell of inner change and deep conviction, 
but that’s no coin to purchase rest. Oh sin¬ 
cere words, no doubt, but words for all of 
that,—such are suspicious.” 

“Yet I can promise—” 

“You can, but what of that? Intention out¬ 
runs ability, hence it were better that man 
never made a promise, or took an oath, but 
only acted. We do not know how prospects 
taste until we go to them and seize them, 
therefore your words are vain; between your 
protest and the proof the way is wide, so wide, 
so very wide. You speak of love, but love’s 
an empty word if it does not set a man to 
action. You would relax, but must not. The 
cosmic riddle! you’ve not solved it, but only 
glimpsed the form in which it outwardly exists. 
Hear this, that in your plain of spirit’s unity 
lie the transverse yawning gulfs of caste, and 




400 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


underneath the whole the benumbing clutch 
of that machine idea which in upending us 
sets up as head what should be feet. Have 
you courage? Then forward! For long long 
years a scoffing prodding tongue has kept you 
from rust and sloth,—now be your own urge 
and controlling hand, and prove your words 
are more than words. Freed from the shell of 
old inheritance, and broken at last to frag¬ 
ments, there now begins in you the long and 
arduous task of building you anew, that from 
the wreck of a life begun awry and gone awry 
so long, there may be made a man.” 

“But how?” 

“By fusing with the earth you tried to flee, 
by really seizing what so far you’ve only said 
you’ve seized. Struggle back to childhood’s 
view, but cast away the haunted pallid eyes 
you had as infant. Strive for that true far- 
seeing mysticism which is a phase of conscious¬ 
ness not abortive vagary, and thence filter 
upward through the earth. I offer you this 
truth, that man is still too weak and young a 
thing, too feeble, gross and stupid, to soar 
above the earth. He leaves his strength who 
leaves the earth, rave as he will in tangled and 




AN ENDING 


401 


unmeaning phrase. He keeps his strength 
who stays on earth, and has more strength, 
for it’s our reservoir, if we but labor with it. 
The earth on which we stand is womb for all 
that’s born, magician showing matter to be 
spirit, a pool in which we gaze and see what we 
may call the pattern of our destiny. The 
earth! the earth! it is our all, our guide and 
wonder, teacher, too, and we are its impatient 
children, who must be whipped to see that 
though the single letters make no sense, their 
careful and laborious joining turns them to 
words and sentences, and these have mean¬ 
ing.” 

The blond man paused, and presently 
resumed, 

6 ‘The dawn is coming fast, and we approach 
the crossroads. Soon we must part, here by 
the western sea, where like rest-seeking wan¬ 
derers in all ages, you came, intent upon the 
grave behind the setting sun. To this far 
place you found your way,—start back. Start 
back, but with new vision, hope and courage, 
treading the selfsame routes, but struggling 
now to see, not single senseless letters, but 
meaning words and sentences. Sneer no more, 




402 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


nor hold aloof from any. Discover that you 
have hands, that dirt is holy, and work is but 
a means of taking glory’s pulse. Mix freely 
with all men, weave in with every strand of 
this our heaving and our motley population, 
see all of these and many more, all sorts and 
types of humankind, all restless bits of yeast 
in vast ferment, know all of these, observe and 
love and understand them,—it is your fate.” 

“And the end?” cried Pentland. 

“The end is that there is no end. Action 
and ceaseless energy, that is the end. Unend¬ 
ing struggle for a goal never to be reached, 
that is the end. And yet though all is flux and 
truth can have no final form, let no dismay be 
bred in you, for man is the measure of all that 
moves about himself, and satisfaction, you’ll 
at last discover, lies in becoming, not in being, 
lies in the running, not in the finished race. 
All is unfinished, incomplete, and never shall 
be otherwise. Experiment, hazard, dire un¬ 
certainty, all these confront you, as from the 
pulsing of our spirit you go on and on,—and 
now we’re at the crossroads.” 

The car stopped. 

They got out. 




AN ENDING 


403 


“Oh I will gladly go,” cried Pentland, “but 
won’t you come with me? Without you I’ll 
be weak and filled with doubt, misgiving, vacil¬ 
lation, the dummy of a ventriloquist without 
the guiding hand and voice.” 

“The dummy must stand alone.” 

“But I am lonely! more lonely than ever in 
my life before. Oh come with me, I beg you. 
You are my brother!” 

“It is human to hunger for companion¬ 
ship,” the other answered sadly, “yet when 
we seek it, we blight our nobler self. Every 
contact with another leaves its blemish and its 
scar, and though down in his inner heart man 
is ever lonely, none other than himself can 
enter there, as likewise he can never merge 
with another’s soul. We aspire to know our 
fellow men and be known of them, but it’s our 
destiny to pass among them evaluated falsely, 
our superficial self appraised, but our deepest 
vice and virtue ignored, even unsuspected. 
We yearn for brotherhood, but though we 
actually approach it, it must remain an ideal. 
The highest fate of man is to go his way alone 
and secretly, upon a path that is hidden from 
all others. He who is a searcher after Truth 




404 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


must follow his solitary course, and seek out 
suffering.” 

“What! seek out suffering?” 

The blond man gave a weary little smile, 

“Many have preached of happiness; I speak 
to you of pain and sorrow. Happiness is the 
aim of weaklings, a lure, a false deceiver, 
destroying virtue, celebrating vice, and he who 
seeks it wounds himself. Look to the other 
pole! to pain and evil, danger, trouble,—these 
are man’s best friends, sorting the feeble to 
the rubbish heap and lifting the strong to 
greater things, upbuilding in these last the 
very frame of character. Court suffering, 
therefore, that your soul may be ploughed 
deep and from it spring a better man, and if 
you pass through sorrow’s gantlet without 
wavering, without shrinking back, and if you 
issue from her further countless trials, you 
shall become a god.” 

“A god!” and Pentland shuddered and 
drew back. 

“A god! The lowly savage sometimes 
thought himself a god, and though the prod 
of aspiration drove later peoples skyward, 
there now begins a trend toward that return to 




AN ENDING 


405 


earth which has for culmination, not God in 
Heaven, but many gods on earth. Not para¬ 
dise conferred by an omniscient hand, but 
progress toward perfection here below and by 
our own human efforts, behold in this last 
step and frank admission, summation of the 
circle. The destiny of man is to reveal and 
show in full developed form the embryo now 
lurking in him, to shed his dross by toil and 
struggle, prayer and thought; then clearly 
shining forth as perfect, absorb into himself 
the universe, himself expanding to the same, 
and thus upon equality! not bended knee, 
associate with that ideal we name, for lack of 
better word, our God. And now good-bye, 
we’ve talked too long. With words we titillate 
the outward form of things, with action, work, 
and aspiration you must seize and make the 
truth of life your own.” 

‘Til go!” cried Pentland. ‘Til go, but tell 
me first, is this farewell, or shall we meet 
again: 

“We shall meet again.” 

“But where? and when?” 

“Upon the road, the endless road, in some 
far distant time unknown to both of us, when 




406 THE MAN WHO CANNOT DIE 


your own searching seeking wandering, shall 
be extinguished in the end of my own quest.” 
Pentland bowed low, and said, 

“Then until that time shall come, good¬ 
bye.” 

“Good-bye,” I answered. 





The following pages contain a few of 
the critical reviews of other novels by 
Thames Williamson, 







REVIEWS OF RUN SHEEP RUN 


“Impressive.” — New York Sun. 

“Fascinating.” — Bliss Perry , Harvard University. 

“As simple as ultimate truth — and as grand.” — Jim. Tully. 

“This is a book to be read at a sitting.” — Cleveland Plain Dealer. 

“A strange and sinister tale, unlike anything we have read in all 
the earlier deluge of western fiction.” — Boston Herald, 

“Williamson has, obviously, a fine feeling for sky and star, wind 
and mountain, waterfall and forest and flower.” — San Francisco 
Chronicle. 

“A mountain idyll. Better certainly than anything that has come 
out of the Sierras since Muir’s rare passages of lyric prose.” — Henry 
Seidel Canby. 

“A vigorous and interesting psychological study with a dark 
haunting atmosphere, and fine insight into the primitive mind.” — 
Cincinnati Enquirer. 

“More readable and impressive than a whole wagonload of ordi¬ 
nary western stories, and significant because it marks the beginning 
of a literary career of unusual promise.” — Galveston News. 

“This tale of sheepherding in the mountains of central California 
is so arresting that the critical vocabulary halts on the tongue. 
There are so many kinds of things the book might have been that it 
isn’t. If it must be described in terms of artistic creation, it is more 
akin to Greek drama than to the fiction of the day.” — Harvard 
Crimson Bookshelf. 

“In ‘ Run Sheep Run’ we are confronted with a quite unconven¬ 
tional novel of primal life and force. This novel has been written with 
delicacy of imagination and realistic insight. A bold and brilliant 
study. Its power is such that it fascinates. ... A novel of 
honest vigor, as distinguished from so much of our whining literature.” 
— New York Times. 

“A primitive tale this, virile and oddly fascinating. A tale of 
buzzards wheeling against the sky; flocks of sheep, driven and dumb; 
great mountains and lonely places; Paddy, the faithful, wistful 
sheep-dog; and Bill, the sheepherder, goaded almost mad by solitude, 
brutal, crude, coarse, fairly sinister with his overwrought nerves. 
Realism of the Sierra Nevadas, poignantly, imaginatively, absorb¬ 
ingly done.” — International Book Review. 








REVIEWS OF GYPSY DOWN THE LANE 

“Intensely dramatic.” — Cincinnati Enquirer. 

“A brutalized conflict that is both superb and cruel.” — New 
York Times. 

“A delightful love story unravelled with unexcelled skill.” — 
Salt Lake City Telegram. 

“His volume, full of outdoors and the spirit of things when the 
world was young, is an abiding joy.” — Boston Transcript. 

“Mr. Williamson has grasped the intensively subjective, emi¬ 
nently pagan attitude of the wanderer.” — Harvard Crimson Book¬ 
shelf. 

“An exuberant romance of gypsy life in New England and New 
York State — by a man who has lived with the gypsies and is an 
authority on their ways.” — International Book Review. 

“Certainly, in a book that seems to have been produced without 
effort, merely a bubbling, fast moving sort of fantasy, Thames 
Williamson has achieved a remarkable result.” — Brooklyn Eagle. 

“It is a penetrating study that Williamson has made, brilliant 
in its characterizations, sympathetic in its insight, and alive at all 
times, reflecting as many moods as life itself. ... A splendid 
story.” — Sacramento , Cal., Bee. 

“The narrative form is excellent, the dialect is clever, the plot 
is unusually strong, and there is no hint of the melodrama that would 
have spoiled the book had it been written by a weaker pen than 
Williamson’s.” — Nutley, N. ]., Sun. 

“Mr. Williamson gives us an unusually competent piece of 
picaresque literature, depicting a series of episodes that range from 
the broadly comic to the gruesomely tragic, and at the same time 
investing his narrative with a magic sort of poetry. Its place on 
the book shelves should be near the works of Borrow.” — Buffalo , 
N. Y., Times. 

“Good reading, bright and sparkling on the surface, but with 
under-currents of speculations and suggestions. Mr. Williamson 
possesses large and liberal gifts. He has insight into the primitive 
and a sense of kinship with fundamental states of mind and emotions. 
He knows the beauty of Nature, but also her indifference to the fate 
of man and her superb cruelty.” — New York Post. 

“Mr. Williamson writes a cadenced prose which is nothing short 
of sheer beauty. Almost any page could be broken into free verse 
of the highest order, yet there is never the sense of straining or dis¬ 
torting the phrasing for the sake of this effect. Its naturalness is a 
triumph, just as the beauty and dramatic poignancy of the story 
are something long to haunt the reader.” — Boston Herald. 









THE AMERICAN PANORAMA 

Taken as a series, the novels of 
Thames Williamson are to be a com¬ 
prehensive panorama of American 
life in all of its kaleidoscopic variety. 
His plan is not only unique, it con¬ 
stitutes the greatest project ever 
undertaken by an American writer. 
The series is only beginning! Watch 
for further volumes by this original 
and powerful novelist. 





















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